The Birth of a Monster
by AbominableDante
Summary: Farfarello perspective of his early years in Swartz. M, just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**The Birth of a Monster

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**Author's Notes: **This is about Farfarello's beginning. I'm almost positive that there will be more on this subject to follow, but at the moment, it's going to stay a one-shot. I have other projects I'm working on, but this will be something fun when I take a break.

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**1

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Schizophrenia and I are lovers…siblings. I, as my mother and father before me, am involved in a septic relationship that could only bear children worse then I am, as I am worse than my father before me. Ah, my father…I know nothing about him, however much Schizophrenia claims I do. She lies often, as well practiced in deception as she is at sensuality.

This place, this thing of a building that reeks of sterile bandages and urine and things I care not to identify…she loathes it. I don't much adore it myself, but it keeps her away, keeps me from our rather abusive affair. I'm the one who always ends up scarred, bleeding or on some kind of medication, the needle poking out of my arm, painless and yet still utterly unsettling. It doesn't frighten me, but that damned piece of shrapnel in my arm is just unnatural. I want it out before my mind flees me under the drugs.

I have been interned here, wherever 'here' might be, for something close to six months. I only know this because my physical therapist tells me every time we see one another. She is fond of keeping track of her patients, thirty-something others besides me, on separate calendars lined up on the walls of her kitchen, writing in that tiny cursive of hers how much each has recovered by the number of each day. I am not alone of the mind that she should have a visit here like the rest of us. And they dare call us crazy…

Since I've been on bad behavior, I've been sent to a small padded room for some 'time out' or whatever they call it this week. I'm fifteen; I outgrew 'time out' about five years ago. I am not too young for electroshock, which is unpleasant (to put it mildly), but it's expensive to the hospital and they would rather spend their money on people who aren't out of touch with society, someone normal. I can understand that. If given the choice between saving a semi-catatonic psycho who'd killed not only his girlfriend (who he raped and beat before slashing her throat in an almost artistic way), but created the most spectacular, utterly flawless work of literature on his first and final draft verses the life of a little girl with blood cancer, I would say that the common human compulsion would be to save the brat. Its how these people work, they've no love for the truly enlightened, however muddled they might be, if it's worth saving the next generation.

What happened to natural selection? I want the dinosaurs back, and then maybe they'd think twice before caring for those who are already dying. Or perhaps back in Rome, just before the plague hit, when the empire was at its absolute highest intellectual point. Ah, what I'd give to live a day in that world.

They haven't put me in a straight jacket, since I'm on my own and the security camera in the corner prevents me from self-mutilation at the touch of an emergency button behind the plate-glass window of the security office. I glower at the lens and turn away at the sound of the food slat in the door slide open. I shut my eyes, trying to think of the best meal in the world, even when I know that if I open them I'll find the mush they serve us everyday. So much for dreams…

I open them when the plopping sound of slop on my plate doesn't arrive. Where a hand usually slides through, a pair of eyes stares in at me. I don't recognize those eyes, or the offensive swish of green hair that falls into that face. The eyes aren't smiling, and somehow I sense that the expression of seriousness is unusual.

I stare back, unmoving, silent and expressionless. If this is one of those doctors they bring in from medical school, I'd rather not give them something to go on. They get bored quickly, passing on at an average of forty-three seconds. I've figured it all out because I have a lot of time on my hands.

The door closes, just as I expected, though a little earlier than I had calculated. I am adjusting them accordingly when I hear the bolt slide open. I stiffen, suddenly on guard. I slowly back into the furthest corner from the door, crouch and stay there, ready to attack whatever orderly dares come near me. It's too early for them to take me out. They usually leave me in here for a few days before they think I'm ready to see my therapist.

Dr. Manning comes in; white and pristine, slim black framed glasses on that fine nose of hers which I've always wished dearly to smash. Even the pencil behind her ear is disgusting. She makes me sick with the sight of her perfect ankles, her perfect painted smile, and her façade of sympathy when I know she considers me a lesser being. I can't stand the pity; I'm violently allergic to it, so much so that I forced myself to vomit on her shoes just so I could get out of a session. It earned me a few days in a cell and a sore throat from prodding back there, but I felt a certain joy at seeing her eyes flash angry when she realized I'd ruined her little black shoes with my wash of gruel, the same color, texture, and flavor it had been when I ingested it hours before, though several degrees warmer.

Behind her comes a tall man, the tallest man I'd ever seen, who looks both remarkably like her and completely separate from everything I know to be my world, like a glazed font of curly type among the Times New Roman twelve. He adjusts his glasses, his charcoal suit and black tie and I think for a moment that he looks rather like someone from Scotland Yard. I'm well known there, but not for my shining personality.

"He's been badly behaved recently, are you sure you'd like to be alone?" Dr. Manning asks, not looking at me, pretending I'm not in the room. She's good at this, especially when she's prescribing my medications and exercise routine. The man nods, but doesn't turn to face me either. I feel annoyed, but I'd rather not draw attention to myself.

Dr. Manning gives a tentative nod to the man and a look to me that almost describes the hell my life will be if I mess up whatever opportunity I or the hospital has been presented with. I sneer at her and wink and she leaves, locking the door behind her. The man finally looks at me and adjusts his glasses again.

"You should get those resized," I suggest. He gives me a quirk of a smile and the ghost of a shrug.

"But then I couldn't pretend nonchalance when I want," he replies. I don't get it and he knows it. I don't think what he said was meant to have a point.

Well, I tried the icebreaker bit, it's his turn. My butt still hurts from the shots they gave me, I known because I can feel it tighten from my awkward position. Again, not pleasant.

They stick me in a room full of pillows when they know I won't sleep. Pointless…I tune the man out, wondering about those eyes I saw before, the lovely half-face I saw.

"My name in Crawford."

"Just Crawford?"

"At the moment."

"You sound like a noir film. Stop it."

"Not a fan of the hard-boiled detectives?"

"I eat detectives for breakfast."

He snorts, and I don't think he believes me. I'm only lying a little, he obviously hasn't read all my records. It wasn't breakfast, but I had snacked on a detective's finger after he'd come to catch me. By himself…the fool. He was obviously green, with the lack of preparation he'd made to go after a known killer like me. He tasted awful, but his blood was an interesting flavor I wouldn't particularly mind trying again.

"Are you hungry?" he asks.

"They haven't fed me in days. People tend to ignore the pets that misbehave."

He blinks once, twice, and turns back to the door to knock on it, utterly open. I could rush him now and he wouldn't have three seconds to react. The time it takes for the nervous system to get a message up to the brain and back to the body is about six seconds. I don't move, deciding to wait and see what he has to offer. If he dares give me gruel I'll kill him here and now.

The food portal slides open again and a tray is shoved through before it closes again. He picks it up and sets it in the center of the room, backing away like I'm some kind of spooked animal. It's just as well; I don't want him in my personal space…he feels dangerous.

That's what made him stand out before, I realize, he has the air of murder, much like I do. His is controlled; it's why I didn't pick up on it before. I'm not used to any but my own, my crazy sense of distraction.

I stay where I am and look up at him, expressionless.

"You're not going to win me over with food," I say, my voice heavy with suspicion.

"I know," he remarks, but it sounds as if he knows I'm wrong. My stomach is growling silently and I can feel it knot as I smell something deep fried. It's all I can do to hold back as long as I do. I move slowly over to the tray, though I want to run.

Like I said, I'm hungry.

Its fish and chips, bloody fish in chips! The first I'd had in years. I'm so excited I nearly faint from the pleasure of smelling real food. I suspect he stole it from the nurse's lounge or the cafeteria. I rip into it, though I wish I had some vinegar and salt to slather it with.

"I thought you said I wasn't going to buy you with food," Crawford says.

"It won't," I reply through a mouthful of whitefish, "But it helps. You have at least half of my attention, so what do you want?"

Right to the point…I can't do conversational spirals right now, I'm busy.

"I want you to work for me."

I don't even pause to swallow; my cheeks are bulging in a way I envied little children of. One can't have bulging cheeks with gruel. It's so gruesome that one can barely hold it in one's mouth long enough to swallow. This isn't heaven, but it's close enough to Nirvana for me. I don't care if I am reborn a worm, as long as I can eat right NOW.

"Doing what?" I ask, skin crunching beneath my teeth. I savor it, but do not linger. "Killing people?"

He almost looks shocked, opens his mouth to ask me how I figured it out, if I'm really as perceptive as Dr. Manning believes I'm not. Like she, I'm good at pretending.

"You smell like it," I lie. He seems satisfied with it and closes his mouth again.

I can't smell anything beyond the fish and potatoes. I don't want to. In a contest between blood and street food, I'd choose the food hands down. Growing boys need their cholesterol.

"Would it get me out of here, more food, less drugs and maybe some money?" I ask, already thinking of my options once I have enough money to survive. Killers for hire go for a lot, I suppose, I could retire in a matter of years, not decades like the other people that work normal jobs.

I'm thinking Venice.

Yeah, I'd like one of those boats.

"Certainly, but we can discuss prices later. To do this, you would have to go through training, join a team…"

"Your team?"

"I don't have a team."

"Then is that your boyfriend outside? Couldn't be a bodyguard, or he'd be in here with us."

He thinks this over long enough that I know I'm right. This is nice, being right.

"I've no problem with training, or killing, or your little team. Respect me, I respect you, and it's one big happy circle of not murdering one another with ropes and pillows," I say something close to cheerfully. He doesn't look unnerved…good.

I like this man already, though his accent leaves something to be desired. Americans…ugh.

My stomach growls again and I look down at it as if that'll make it shut up. Crawford raises an eyebrow at me and offers me an apple he had been holding behind his back. The drugs haven't worn off then…I would've noticed that before if I was lucid.

"Still hungry?"

I'm always hungry.

I eye the apple.

"You know, Eve tempted Adam with an apple," I say, "But the man outside is prettier, so he'd have to be Eve…so that would make you Satan and you've got this whole thing wrong."

"Would you rather I go outside and send my partner in?" He didn't sound ready to do that, but he wasn't impatient with me yet. I take the apple and bite down hard.

Sealed deal, I get to my feet and follow him to the door. He towers over me by at least a foot. I would be as tall as he is if I wasn't lacking a certain nutrition, one doesn't exactly thrive in this kind of environment. I step out with him, the linoleum is cold beneath my bare feet and I shiver as he introduces his partner, the man with green hair and steady eyes who goes by the name of Schuldig. He smells like a smoker, though he isn't much older than I am, and his smile is unsettlingly reminiscent of a whore's looking for a trick. She's smiling, but she'd rather just shoot you and steal your money. She's a mugger on drugs.

He does not hold his hand out to shake mine, that is not the etiquette among killers, but he does nod his head to me in acknowledgement.

"What is your name? Crawford didn't tell me," he asks as we walk to the door out of the ward, to another that is less secure and more crowded. Through that ward to the elevator and then, I guess, to a car. With a little paperwork, a discreet exchange of money, I'm free, bought and paid for like a puppy in a pet store. I almost want to ask for a collar and ID tag.

I could reply to his question truthfully, but since he didn't give his real name (I do happen to know a little German, enough to know that 'guilty' isn't a name) I don't feel I would like to either. I look back at Crawford and wonder if that's his real name too. He's busy with the paperwork.

I think quickly and come up with a book Ruth once gave me, describing to me the plot of the story and listing the demons involved. I smile softly at the thought of her, of her escape and of my vow to hunt her down and kill her for ruining my life. I had the ideal life before her little 'admission', and I think she deserves to pay for some of her mistakes. She needs to pay for the mistake of having me, to stop running and face up. That's the whole point of mothers, making up for mistakes.

I think of the list of names, of one I thought rather beautiful. I have always entertained the idea of ghosts, so I seriously consider the name.

"Farfarello," I say quietly, the Italian rolling off my tongue gracefully, only a little accented, like Schuldig's English when he slurs his 'S's and silences his 'J's.

"That isn't a real name."

"Well, maybe I'm not a real person."

He stops to consider this, his eyes lingering too-long on my face before he turns away. Crawford comes back and users us down the hall to the elevator and to (as I expected), a car.

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_End 1_

_Please Review

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**Author's Notes: **Yes, it's much the same voice as the other Farfarello fics. It worked so well I couldn't bear to give it up now that I've found my swing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: **I changed from first person to third. It's just easier to write in. I'm sorry for the confusion and errors. I did not take a whole lot of time editing this beyond spell and grammatical checks. If I missed something, please notify me.

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**2

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Everyone betrays someone at least once in their lives, twice if they're the clumsy kind. Schuldig and Crawford, though, did it for a living, out of pure malicious intent. That, and they sometimes needed the money.

Even though I was out of the asylum, I still dealt with people trying to get into my head, but on a more literal terminology. Every waking minute I was on edge, trying to keep Schuldig out and doing my best to ignore Crawford's questions about my behavior. He thought I was being vicious toward the German just because I was a vicious person.

I'm no such thing. I'm quite likable so long as a certain telepath wasn't trying to dissect my mind. For once, I wasn't the one with a fixation.

I have taken to carrying a paring knife on me at all times. It usually worked for the now common threats.

Schuldig was lounging on the sofa, watching Anthony Hopkins on the screen with his mouth partially open. There were green streaks of hair stuck to the sides of his face and it took me a moment to realize that he was crying. I had only ventured out of my room to raid the kitchen, the fruit bowl tucked against my chest and a whole apple clenched in my teeth. I didn't mean to pause, but I had before I realized it.

I pulled the apple out of my mouth and raised an eyebrow at him.

"What is that?" I asked, motioning to the television set. Schuldig turned and looked at me, aghast. He snorted as if I wasn't worth his time and turned back to the screen.

"A television."

God help me, sometimes I could kill him just for being a prick all the time. My hands were full from the fruit, but it didn't stop me from considering.

I hadn't had blood in months and I wondered how his would taste.

"You sound like a vampire," Schuldig said, looking at me over his shoulder. He patted the sofa next to him and shifted over a little. I hesitated, and then moved. The sofa soaked in my weight and I sank into it. It made me feel fat and I glanced suspiciously at the bowl of bananas, oranges and bunches of grapes.

"It's _Silence of the Lambs_."

I'd heard of that movie, read the reviews because it was next to some of the good articles in the post, but never thought anything more of it. The music surged out suddenly and I jumped, my eyes snapping to the screen. The main character, Hannibal, had just chopped down on a guard's nose and was making quick work of beating his partner unconscious with his own bat. I shivered.

Not to say I was queasy, that I feared murder or gore, but if I didn't have to watch it and if I wasn't doing it, I didn't much enjoy watching. Schuldig didn't think that way. He liked suffering of others with the same zeal he had when he was smashing skulls himself. Of course, he didn't like ruining his own clothes, so he resorted to guns and let me to the dirty work.

The man got off on gore.

My eyes ventured between his legs without my mind telling them to and I noticed that his pants were tented. I raised my eyebrow again and flicked my eyes up to meet his. Steady gold-blue laughed at me and I let my hand rest on the handle of the knife stuck in my belt. Schuldig was moving closer, very slowly, but I didn't let it unsettle me.

"Have a thing for crazies, Schuldig?" I sneered. He only smiled and ducked his chin slightly. His hand reached out and brushed my jaw, free of peach fuzz. "And kids?"

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"No."

He smiled again, pleased that I was pulling the knife out and brandishing it at him. He didn't stop closing in, didn't even pause.

"Are you objecting?"

I stopped to think on it, considering the consequences. Crawford didn't care who Schuldig slept with so long as he didn't give the team away. The worst thing I could think of was STDs, but Schuldig's recent tests came in negative. I was a minor, barely fifteen and he was edging close to eighteen, but wasn't there yet. No legalities to worry over.

Sodomy was totally against the Christian Church's laws. I would be banished straight to Hell for just the thoughts blossoming in my mind.

I thought of betrayal. Schuldig couldn't hurt me, but the Catholics had. My mother had. Even nuns betrayed their children, even God turned away from caring for his little pets every once in a while. Families turned against one another, but Schuldig and I, Crawford and I, we weren't family. We weren't even friends or co workers yet. They wouldn't let me go with them on a hit, so we weren't a team.

They couldn't touch me.

I lowered the knife, set it inside the bowl and dropped it all on the floor next to my feet.

"No."

Schuldig's fingers, which had been on my chin a moment ago, snaked around my head and cupped it at the base as he leaned me back on the sofa, bet me backwards over the arm and pressed flush against me.

I felt like prey and nearly kicked him off. He stopped a moment before I did and let me back up, let me have some of the reigns back.

I kissed him first; practically attacked his mouth and he met me head on. Neither of us were the submissive type, it was how we survived. His tongue forced me out of his mouth, and then pulled me back in with dizzying force. I crawled onto his lap, my knees settling around his hips as my hands clamped on either side of his head to hold it still.

Once one realized the elements of betrayal, one can avoid it.

It changed every time. I thought I'd had it nailed down, but one can't capture insignificant ideas. I was only fifteen, I didn't understand anything.

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"Smoke?"

I shook my head tiredly and turned away as I heard Schuldig light the end of his cigarette and suck in. I couldn't watch him smoke, it was painfully sensual and I'd had enough just then. I was exhausted, drowsing in seconds before Schuldig settled the lighter back on the nightstand and leaned back against the headboard.

I vaguely hoped he'd enjoyed me as much as he was that cigarette.

I wanted chocolate.

Schuldig finished and the hiss of the butt being smashed out was enough to wake me. He shifted off the bed and into his clothes, the rustle of fabric and buttons loud in my ears.

"Come on, get up."

I groaned and turned my head into the pillow, but Schuldig grabbed a handful of my hair and forced me to look up at him. I growled and curled my hands into lax claws.

"Why?" I asked. There was point in leaving the house or the bed. It was my bed, so he couldn't well throw me out…

"We're taking you to Esset," Schuldig explained. I came awake at the name, my eyes widened in fear.

"What?"

My head screamed betrayal, the one thing I thought they could never do to me and yet here I was; about to be sold off again to the monsters Schuldig told me stories about.

"We're going to make you part of the team, Darling," Schuldig said sweetly. I shuttered at the tone and wished my knife wasn't in the other room. I wanted to cut his tongue out, the lying snake.

"Oh hardly," Schuldig countered, "I never lie. I simply twist reality to my devices, is all."

Goddamnit, get out of my head.

"God isn't going to help you, Farfarello. He's never helped you, don't you know that? Don't you blame him every day for the things he's done to you? You can make him hurt with what you learn hurting others and yourself in Esset. You can make him bleed."

Damn the man for knowing what appealed to me, to stupid little me. I bought it all and savored every ounce of torture I anticipated.

"Kill God…" I said in a hushed whisper. Schuldig's grip was more gentle now, and he smiled down at me, kissed me.

"Yes, if you like."

I paused a few beats and broke into a smile.

"Let me get dressed."

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_End 2_

_Please Review

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**Author's Notes: **This chapter was inspired, but not at all modeled after, by Red Dragon. I love the movie so very much and used some of my own personal reactions for the dialogue. You see, I have a thing for the crazies in movies; I'm the one who goes to horror flicks and roots for the bad guy if he suits my tastes. Hannibal Lector is one such villain.

I figure if Schu and Farfie were to have some kind of intimate relationship, which I want them to very badly to because they fit so well together, our lovely German would have to be rather like me and enjoy watching the intelligently insane murder their way into our hearts. Not to Say Crawford and Schu aren't a good pair themselves, but not in this fic. I hope you've been enjoying it and I hope you'll enjoy the rest.

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**To My Readers: **

**eva84: **Why thank you Eva-dear. I'm very glad you're enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it. I hope to hear more from you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: **Woot, Chapter three! See? I _have _been writing after all…

Please enjoy.

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**3

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Training is a bitch. I loathe every second of it.

And yet, I can't help running blindly down the beach. The feel of the wind whipping sand against my face and sunburn is too enjoyable for me to pass up, even though there are dogs on my tail who would eat me alive if they could catch up. I had a bit of a head start, say…a mile and a half. And I'm fast, faster than most men, because I don't stop when they would, as I don't get cramps.

The sunburn too, it doesn't hurt, but the sand in my eyes is a bit of a distraction.

Why am I running? I don't know. It isn't as if I have anywhere to go, anyone who would take me in. I'm still a kid, after all, I can't take care of myself in the real world, since one could say I don't occupy it a certain percentage of the time.

I just want to get away, anywhere away, so long as it isn't here. I don't even have a vague idea of where I might be. I could be on some island and running around in circles for days before I realized it. I could be sixty miles from Nova Scotia. Who knows? The water is cold, but everything is in winter. There should be snow on the ground, but I can't see any.

As if I'm really looking.

I'm more worried about the dogs. I hate dogs because they typically hate me. Studying under Esset hasn't changed my mind any, either. They have the habit of using them on those of us who misbehave, or just for the kick the guards get out of hearing the other boys scream. There aren't any girls here, I suppose they go somewhere else, but that rarely ever makes a difference to teenage boys in dire surroundings.

They learned quickly to leave me be. I bit my attacker's nose off the moment he got close and after that they keep their distance. I don't bother them and they don't bother me. We'd sell one another out in a second, but that doesn't make any difference. They aren't teaching us loyalty here.

It's amazing how I escaped, I'm a little surprised myself. I don't remember much in the way of details, but I know I'd done it before at the asylum. I managed to slip out of the orderly's arms when he was trying to carry me out of my cell so the janitor could clean it and I put him out of commission long enough to get my legs unbound and make a run for it.

I glance over my shoulder and duck. Even if I can't feel pain, gunshot wounds are hell to deal with and they take forever to heal. I don't want any more beatings from these people, and getting disabled or killed isn't going to make it any shorter.

"Halt!"

Yeah, right…

I keep running, so fast my lungs are making my head light and I feel as if I might fly right off the ground if I spread my arms out and flapped them, if I got up enough speed.

I wish someone was here to get me out of the hellhole. I wish Crawford would come back. I even wish I could see Schuldig again, the prick. They sold me like property to these people, and I could never trust them again, but they never whipped me or spat in my face. It may be Esset's intention to make me feel inferior, but after two years one would think that it just isn't going to work.

I hear a shot ring out and try to duck again, running in zig zag now, but something sinks into my shoulder and empties its contents into my bloodstream. I keep running and they keep shooting, more and more of those flying needles until my legs falter and give out and I collapse onto the sand. I try to crawl away, my stomach wet with surf, to crawl into the ocean and perhaps to drown myself.

Death would be better than this place…Hell would be better than here. At least I would be welcomed in Hell.

They grab me before I can even taste the water.

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"So, they must have called us for a reason. What did you do this time?" Schuldig purrs through the bars at me. I am pacing, caged like a panther and I am wishing I had the claws to cut his tongue out and the stomach to swallow it. He probably knows that, but what do I care? I send the nasty picture over at him through our mental link.

"I didn't recall the fact that you, or rather Crawford, was responsible for me. I didn't know the terms of your little slave trade entailed responsibility when I decided I didn't like my masters."

"Oh ho, fancy words for a boy who still believes in Peter Pan."

"Her name is Tinker Bell. Get it right," I snap back, my face against the bars in seconds. I am swifter than Schuldig; I became so through the little training program here, but he can still read thoughts. He still knows seconds before I do anything to move away. I can't touch him.

He only smirks.

"Actually, my darling loon, we do have responsibility for your actions. You belong to our team as well as to Esset. Whatever trouble you make comes back to us. And you've been making a lot of trouble…for two years."

"Which means what?"

Schuldig only smiles at me and reaches through the bars to touch my face. I flinch marginally, out of reflex and he only smiles wider. His fingers brush the coarse hair on my chin, as white as the rest of me. His fingers trace my jaw, now strong with a bone structure shaped by age. He glares across my chapped lips, reading the experience there.

He knows this hell.

He pulls away the moment Crawford enters, the American sighing in the way he does when he's hassled. He looks at me, brown eyes tired. He's probably exhausted by the flight here, and then from having to deal with my warden…Esset social structures put Crawford below most everyone else. It happens until a team is good enough.

We're not even complete…not yet. We're far from great, though Crawford had promised us a better future among the ranks.

"You're leaving without me," I ask flatly, barely a question at all. I can't read his eyes.

"Actually no, we're to take you with us simply because you're no longer wanted here, not because you finished the course."

Hot damn…

I wait impatiently for them to open the cell and rush out almost before the guard could undo my handcuffs. I was then shuffled into the car that was idling in the front lot, the driver conveniently unaware of his surroundings as we got in and he drove us to the airport. We would take a private plane for the sake of avoiding metal detectors. I set them off half the time anyway, with whatever pins they put in my leg or fingers or wrists or head.

It is difficult to understand the pain of a broken bone, the way Schuldig screamed when Crawford smashed his fingers some time ago, the way the man whined and whimpers for days afterward. He nursed his hand for weeks, claiming that the pain was simply too much to get through without medications. The last time I broke my leg I had to walk a couple of miles to the hospital. I didn't feel a thing.

The leather of the seat is cool through my threadbare trousers and I shiver against the chill winter air that spills through the door after Crawford and Schuldig. I shift a little closer to the German, simply because he is giving off heat and he looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

_Not holding anything against me, oh bitchy queen of vindication?_

Schuldig and his sense of humor. If he didn't talk so much maybe people would actually like him.

Eh, what can I say? I like him like this. He entertains me.

/Whatever would I have to hold against you/ I ask, my mental voice mocking innocence. Schuldig snorts, which makes Crawford look up from the papers he's looking over. The American barely gives us a glance before looking down again.

_So this means we can make up when we get home?_ He sounds hopeful. He obviously hasn't had a good fuck in weeks, if he's asking me, of all people.

_Don't belittle yourself so, my dear. You were splendid. I hope you haven't lost your touch in these two years. You've grown rather rugged…I like it. _

/You make me ill./ And that was that.

I hadn't exactly agreed, but I hadn't disagreed either…

As if Schuldig would listen when I said no anyway…

He leans down to my ear, his still-green hair brushing against my face, and kisses my earlobe. I almost flinch, but I don't want to catch Crawford's attention again.

"You'll love airplane sex…you like airtight spaces like that, don't you?" he whispers.

I shiver. Crawford keeps right on reading.

Schuldig was wrong.

* * *

I absolutely hate airplane sex. I absolutely hate airtight spaces.

It's called claustrophobia, and I am suffering it right now. Schuldig is trying to calm me, hushing me as best he can and still trying to get my pants off, but I'm hyperventilating. My breaths are so huge I feel as if I'm about to faint. There are black spots bursting before my eyes and tears streaking my cheeks.

I am not having fun…

"Stop," I plead for the tenth time in a row, my voice breaking with shuttering.

"Its fine, Farfie, nothing is going to happen. The walls aren't going to close in on you."

I wasn't worried about the walls. It was the air that seemed to be leaving the room. How could Schuldig not see that?

I force myself away from him and turn, ready to order him to unlock the door he was leaning against and let me out. I don't care about my state of undress, I just want out.

Schuldig's face is distorted like a Dali painting, melting right off his skull. His fingers are claws, the sharp talons ripping through cloth and flesh and his psycadelic clothing is swirling and forming horrible faces that scream at me.

I do the only natural thing one would do, I attack him and fight for my life. He is keeping me here, in this vacuum, and I refuse to die here with a monster like that. I rip at his face, my short nails tearing screeches out of him, both German and English, and I tear his shirt from him, stomping on it savagely.

_Farfie…Farfarello! Listen to me. It's okay. Everything's okay. Just calm down. Deep breaths…deep breaths…_

I'm going to die if I can't get out of here. I try to shove him aside, but he grabs me. I try to fight him, but he holds me back through the sheer force of his mind pressing into mine. He inserts calm emotions, serene pictures and the sound of a mother's heartbeat, though his underlying current of thought is both worried and a little terrified. My fighting slows and eventually stops. I slump in his arms, still seeing black spots and still unable to breathe.

He shushes me and strokes my hair and presses the need for sleep into my head.

"I'm sorry, Farfarello," he says softly. I am surprised. The man never apologizes.

I slip into sleep before he can say more. But I remember the cuts on his face and the cooling blood under my nails.

* * *

I come hazily to awareness at the sound of Crawford's angry voice. I hear a hand connect with skin and Schuldig's whine in protest, only half-indignant.

"Never do anything to hurt the team, Schuldig. How many times have I told you!" Crawford shouts. The man never shouts. He is always quiet, in control, direct. The change terrifies me.

"And then you do this!" the American continues, "I said nothing before about your little indiscretion, but I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to repeat it!"

Schuldig mumbles something, but Crawford has already turned away, sitting in his seat and focusing on his newspaper.

Schuldig sighs and rubs his cheek, then focuses his blue eyes on me, the gold flecks glinting at me even from across the cabin.

_Sleep, lovely. We'll be home soon._

I obey.

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_Fin chapter 3_

_Please Review

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_

**To My Readers: **

**eva84: **I'm glad you got the age thing. A lot of people don't understand why I insist on the age of some character. I agree that a lot of writers try to over mature him. But think about it, he was picked up at a really young age and even in the anime he's 19 or 20 years old right? I'm 18 and I'm still really immature. Sure, there's a lot of people who aren't, I just know them…(laughs). Thanks for reviewing. I hope you're enjoying the fic.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: ** Has anyone here seen _A Scanner Darkly_? I have and I loved it. It's like philosophy on crack.

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**4

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I am not a nihilist, but I do believe that life is ultimately boring and therefore pointless no matter what you do about it. It hasn't stopped the billions of people from getting up in the morning and doing their stupid jobs to pay the rent, do the bills, fuck their wives and raise their children.

I hate children. I hate women. I have no job. I worship Hell's Angels. You can see where this is going.

Schuldig and Crawford think the same thing about normalcy and the normal folk. Schu thinks of them as farm animals or playthings he can throw away when he gets bored. Crawford hats the Angels, but happens to be an anarchist. He says the boy they'll bring in a year from now won't think anything at all. Schu says he's seen the boy too, but instead of not thinking, he is simply steeped in hatred. Schu already loves him like a son and tells me I should enjoy having a sibling again.

I think of Valerie, choke and lock him out of my room for the rest of the afternoon. He knows I'm angry with him, knows I don't think he's worth mentioning her, but he doesn't care. Crawford orders him to leave me alone and I seethe. I don't need some blind spawn of Satan to protect me. I don't want some sadistic freak defending me.

Schuldig can hear me. He's laughing at me through the door. God, I hate his laughter.

_You're one of those sadistic freaks, my little crazie,_ his voice echoes in my head. I slam a fist on the door and shout at him to leave me alone…

_One day you'll find this little extra voice very comforting. One day all this is going to change. Crawford says so._

He doesn't know everything. The future isn't definite.

_Fate, he says, never changes. He found that out the hard way. He says that the means to an end might change, but the end itself does not._

I never thought of Crawford as a Calvinist…

_Does everything to you come back to religion? Dumb fuck…_

Your dumb fuck, actually.

_Speaking of which…_

/No. I'm going to sleep./

Schuldig whines only minimally about how horny he is, but I'm really in no mood. I'm still angry at him about my sister.

I crawl into bed, the cheap mattress sunken into the center, and yank the covers over my head. I fall into masochistically depressing dreams and wake up several times feeling slightly self-destructive. I finger the cool blade on my nightstand, the edge sliding easily through my skin. I make a cut on the inside of my left thigh to mark the number dream I had, then put the blade back and go to sleep again.

I have seven cuts on my leg when I wake up to Schuldig's pale face hovering so close to mine I can count the freckles around his eyes and over his long, straight nose. For once his lips aren't smiling, pulled into a tight, wide line.

He's frowning at me, pulling the covers down and wielding a cotton ball. I can smell the alcohol it's soaked in and scrunch my nose against it, wondering why I hadn't heard him pick the locks on my door. I growl at him to go away and look for my knife to make another mark, number eight. It's gone. Schuldig took it away.

"Arsehole," I seethe. He ignores it and cleaned the blood off my leg with the swab, curses about me ruining yet another set of sheets, tells me this is why I can't have a nicer bed, that I should be sleeping on cardboard or something if he had his way.

I'm still cursing him through his whole tirade and his relentless cleaning.

"This is why we can't let you have knives," he's saying at the same time he's thinking _What are you, fucking suicidal!_

So what if I am? What difference does one hell make from the other?

Schuldig pauses to smack me, so hard my head snaps around and I feel all my blood go to his handprint. I smile up at him as if to say, I told you so.

_Fucking stupid._

I'm still smiling, my eyes mad-bright and I sit up to press my warm cheek into his neck, my face into his surprisingly soft green hair. The gesture is almost affectionate, but to be honest, I'm turned on with his hand so close to my crotch. He knows it and thus denies me the pleasure of rubbing against him, my hips thrusting pitifully at air even though he's trying to disinfect my self-inflicted wounds.

I lean back against the wall, my hands roaming over my body, down into my pants and I suck in a harsh breath, release it in a throaty groan. His eyes are on me now, the gold in blue alive with lust at my display, at the tent in my pants.

I crook a finger at him and that's all it takes. He's on me in a second and a half later.

And who says telepaths aren't easy to control?

* * *

The reason for Hell is to make whatever bliss we find seem blissful because after it we feel like shite. 

Like now.

Now I feel like shite.

Emotionally, that is, spiritually. My soul loves wreaking havoc on my head, loves to make me think of church doctrine when I would rather not. I count how many sins I've committed, my fingers ticking them off as I half smother myself, face down in the pillow. Schuldig is having a post cordial cigarette and the smoke is seeping into the fabric of the sheets, into my hair, my skin.

I think about murder and try to count how many I've killed.

Clergymen…

My parents…

My sister…

Businessmen in their expensive cars and suits, cigars hanging out of their stinking mouths…

Ruth…almost.

I think about pre martial sex. Sex with my own gender.

I think about my desire to kill God, to make God cry and bleed and feel as wretched as I once felt.

I would continue, but Schuldig's thin fingers close mine into a tight fist. His other hand is still occupied by the cigarette, which he moves silently back and forth from his mouth. He sighs out the blue smoke before talking.

"Stop is, Far, it's annoying," he says, his voice smoke-harsh and a little German drawl. I turn my face out of the pillow and blink tiredly up at him. He looks back at me, but doesn't show any emotion.

He doesn't care, so long as I stop. He doesn't care, so long as I stop thinking.

_Maybe not such a dumb fuck after all…_

I snort, pull my hand out of his and roll away from him to sleep. He finishes his cigarette, stubs it out and spoons around my back; his hair tickling the back of my neck, his long nose pressed between my shoulder blades.

* * *

I am eighteen now. My birthday was last week. I am now old enough to buy cigarettes that I don't smoke and porn, which I never watch. I can sit at the bar in pubs and sign legal contracts for various things, such as a car or a house, or I could if I wasn't legally insane. It's a federal offence if someone opens and reads my mail without permission. 

A week ago Schuldig handed me a cupcake with a lit candle stuck in the top. He sneered and said, "Happy Birthday. You can now legally buy a whore."

I'm old enough to buy lotto tickets and sign my own papers at the hospital for my lobotomy. I should be paying taxes.

He's still sour about his past. I don't blame him. Drug addicts and pushers have it rough, except in Amsterdam. Half of his druggie friends were whores. His childhood friend was raped while selling herself. She was so depressed after it that she killed herself a few days later. He joined Crawford not long after that.

I had Valerie. He had Christine.

After I ate my cupcake, Crawford emerged from behind his morning newspaper and coffee cup in all his morning splendor, which is mostly a tired, unwashed, unshaven face and dark, bloodshot eyes behind dingy glasses. He hadn't even bothered getting dressed, his robe open and his boxer-clad legs spread. His hair was tousled and his skin a little sallow. He certainly looked the part of the prophet…madder than I am.

It didn't make any difference to us, though, his day-old beard or his unbrushed teeth. To us he is always Oracle. We know he will always present mornings with this face, since he doesn't ever really sleep. It was normal.

"We're moving. Start getting packed."

Schuldig's head snapped up at him, glowering. Schuldig loved New York. I simply liked America because I didn't have a record. So long as we didn't go back to Britannia, I was fine with wherever Crawford dragged us.

"When? Where?" our German asks.

"Our flight leaves for Japan tomorrow afternoon. We're picking up our boy and a job."

Good. We needed a job. I was sick of cheap apartments and defending my supper from roaches the size of the sewer rats that were in turn the size of small cats. The cats ran from the roaches. I'd seen it. I was sick of a sagging bed and the cigarette butts in the carpet that Schuldig denied any and all blame we tried to set on him. I agreed immediately and packed.

The next day on the plane I was reading a dog-eared book of Jack Kerouac's poems and doing my very best to ignore Schuldig, who was whining something high pitched in the back of his throat and had his fingers latched in a death grip around my arm. He wasn't fond of flying commercially, but Crawford refused to let me give him a high dose of sedatives or let him drink anything with alcohol content.

"It's weird. It feels weird to hear all these people below me, like little ant voices…then the rest of them in the plane. At least three of them hate flying, or close places, or heights…Half of them want to blown chunks," he often said.

I am not one of those people. I don't care about death like those people. If the plane went down, we'd be going way too fast to even think of survival anyway. It was a good death, quick and virtually painless, I would assume. So long as I'm not locked in a stuffy bathroom, I'm set.

Schu's hand clutches tighter and he hisses directly into my ear, "Don't think like that or I swear I'll have a fucking panic attack right now."

"I don't doubt that," I reply wryly, "Have a drink. A beer, a wine, a vodka, I don't care so long as I get some blood flow back into my arm."

"What? The pins and needles thing not doing it for you?" he sneered. I simply reached up and smacked the call button. A stewardess came up to us, all smiles. Schu and I had the similar desire to rip her teeth out. I ordered the hardest liquor they had, double.

"What about Crawford?" Schu asks conspiratorially.

"Fuck Crawford."

"No thanks. I couldn't get around the stick he's got shoved up there."

I smile and he laughs and the stewardess comes back with the cup of watered down vodka. Thank the powers they had vodka. Schu could drink himself into a pleasant stupor with vodka, if given enough glasses. He downs it and orders another, still in the 'Fuck Crawford' mindset.

* * *

He's snoring, his head tipped back and his mouth wide open, before the stewardess even comes back with his fifth drink. I send it back and pry the man's hand off my arm, thankful for the silence I'll have for the rest of the trip. 

He's going to have such a hangover.

* * *

Thirteen hours later, we land and Schuldig's head is pounding with hangover and the onslaught of three billion minds in one place. He's cursing with every breath he takes and can barely lift his luggage from the rack and stuff it into the car. Every five minutes he turns and glares at me. 

Crawford's doing a spectacular job ignoring the both of us. He's setting up last minute moving stuff in quick English and Japanese on his cell phone, his briefcase clamped in one hand as he walks easily a foot and a half taller than everyone else here.

Christ…everyone here looks exactly the same! Men, women, children, elderly, it doesn't matter. They all have the same black hair and the same small eyes and the same round faces and smashed noses. They look as me like I'm the freak. At least in Ireland we could tell one another apart!

Then I see a flash of color and I focus on it as hard as I can. Over the heads of a thousand similar faces is a group of girls with brightly dyed hair and flashy clothes. One girl's hair is bright pink, another's deep blue. The blue girl is chatting on a tiny cell phone that is covered in stickers and the pink-haired girl's eyes are done up with bright green eye shadow. I can't help but stare at them, amazed that they could walk around looking so ridiculous. I can sense the distain of all the respectable gingerbread businessmen and women. I realize how very different they are to everyone else, how very artsy.

And now Schuldig is dragging me into the car, swearing at me and threatening me uselessly if I choose not to obey. I simply give him an elusive smile and slide in beside him.

"They're called Harajuku," Schuldig says, motioning to the colorful beings in the crowd, "Bunch of hot shot rich kids wasting their daddy's money…"

Crawford gives the driver directions and goes back to speaking into the cell phone. I press my forehead against the windowpane and gawk at the lights and neon and culture and adverts that flit by like dreams on display.

I've died and gone straight to heaven…I love this place. It's so busy. It's so surreal.

The car stops in front of a high-class building and we step out as the doorman pulls our luggage out of the trunk. I gawk at him until Schuldig pushes my mouth closed and shoves me at the door, still holding his head and glowering at me whenever he can. The doorman gives another uniformed man the luggage, which he loads onto a cart and rolls to the elevator.

The last flat we had was a third floor walk up in Brooklyn. We didn't have an elevator. This is a huge step up for us.

I look at Crawford. What kind of job had we landed to afford all this? He's passively looking at the doors of the elevator, his eyes deceptively tired.

The door opens again, a soft ding announcing our floor and Crawford pulls out a key to unlock the third door on the left, apartment 24C. He walks in first and does a look over for traps, and then we follow. Schuldig immediately raids the fridge for ice and wraps it in a towel, pressing it against his head with a sigh as he wanders around. The bellhop sets our luggage inside and Crawford tips him and closes the door, locks all the locks and deadbolt.

I claim my room and drop my bag on the bed. It's a comfortably small room, the single window large and bright, facing an intersection on the street. There is a single bookshelf beside the closet, opposing the double bed. Another door by the bed opens to a bathroom that I share with Schuldig's room. His room is wallpapered with small green flowers on a white background. He swears at the sight of it and demands permission to tear it down. Crawford refuses. He looks into my room and complains that I got the better room. My walls are painted with a burnt orange color and white trim. I'd rather have his, though, it's larger.

Crawford naturally gets the master bedroom and private bathroom, though I have a feeling Schuldig is going to be taking over the bathtub from time to time. I'm studying the lights in the rooms and trying to decide which need to be brighter or dimmed. The kitchen is well stocked with silverware and flatware and cooking things like pots, pans and spatulas. The extra bedroom has a black and white theme and the hall bathroom across from it is blue with lighthouse pictures. Our living area looks comfortable enough, with more bookshelves and a respectable television and VCR. The sofa I flop down on is soft and doesn't creak. The matching chair is good to curl up in and has a nice light by it for reading late at night.

All in all, I am both pleased with the apartment and suspicious of what Crawford has gotten us into. He isn't' the type to endanger the team for money, and I don't think he's changed, but it doesn't hurt anything to ask a few questions, after all. Surely he'll mention something over supper, so I wait until then to consider asking.

Our take out is still steaming in the paper boxes we eat out of, unwilling to wash dishes right away. Schuldig still mastering basic chopsticks. It's funny watching him try to get a mouthful of noodles close to his face and watch it splat back into the box. He doesn't know we have forks. Crawford and I eat in relative quiet, listening and becoming accustomed to the sound of the city around us, a little different that New York and London and Dublin and Paris…it's nice.

"Our new Employer is called 'Takatori'. He is a politician and a snake and really not worth Esset's or our time but for that fact that he has money. They are interested in the paychecks and I've been promised that our duty will be little more than body guarding and cleaning.

'Cleaning' means we make whoever itches Takatori the wrong way go very far away and never come back. I've never done body guarding before. Crawford and Schu assure me its brainless work and it'll bore me to death in seconds flat.

"I'll be bringing the boy in two days from now. He will be malnourished, so I want you to start coming up with something to feed him that'll get him healthy, Farfarello."

I nod. I start planning immediately.

"He will also lack control on his power, so Schuldig and I will be training him to the best of our ability until Esset comes and picks him up for proper training."

I freeze, my teeth clenched.

The boy is barely eight, I know. Esset training would kill him. It almost killed Schuldig and nearly drove Crawford insane. I would've been shot in the head had Crawford not insisted on my importance to his team.

"There's nothing we can do about his training, Farfarello," Crawford says before I can even open my mouth, "He's far too powerful to be left untrained."

"How powerful?" Schuldig asks.

"They won't be able to rank him."

"Scheiße."

"That isn't possible," I say, a little amazed myself. I didn't think it was possible. Only the Elders, whom I had never met, were unranked psychics. Could he be the future of Esset, the next Elder, if it came to that?

And what would happen to us if he did? Esset wasn't known for helping former teammates on the scale to the top. We were the kind of business that scrambled up as far as we could go, shoving all others behind us. I hoped this boy wouldn't be the same.

"You'll see," Crawford says, then gets out of his chair and drops his empty box into the trash, "In the mean time, get unpacked and let's get to work. We already have a job set up for us. We'll start on it in the morning. That's all for tonight, gentlemen."

Briefing concluded.

Schuldig and I look at one another.

What had Crawford gotten us into?

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_Fin Chapter 4_

_Please Review

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_

**Author's Notes: **Is it just me or are these chapters getting longer? Yes, I used Bable Fish. I'm lazy like that.

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**eva84: **Again, thank you for the review. Go tell your friends… 


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes: **Who here has read this week's Washington Post Magazine (July 16, 2006)? On the very last two pages, behind all that stuff about Israel and how much the world hates us Americans in general (though they shouldn't hate me personally, since I've never even invaded my neighbor's back yard, not to mention the rest of the world's) is _Below The Beltway_, a section I don't typically read simply because I'm a lazy person and I hate sifting through the newspapers on Sunday morning for a magazine I usually don't enjoy anyway. A friend of mine really enjoys it, so I sometimes take a peek to see what's going on. Well, Gene Weingarten, the journalist who wrote this weekend's (I don't know about other weekends) article, "Did You Ever Wonder, 'What if…?'". It goes into the reality of all those little speculations and common phrases we all hear, like 'What if money grew on trees', 'What if you could smell emotions?' and my favorite, 'What if the bacteria in out gut were sentient and could communicate with us, and began to demand civil rights?'.

Well…I thought it was funny…

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**5

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Nagi looks like the rest of Japan, but his large eyes are strangely blue and they have a certain 'knowing' deep within their depths. They are the color of the Pacific when we flew over it. His round face is pale, almost Anglo-Saxon white from lack of sun and he is so thin his cheekbones stick out sharply. He's all pointy elbows and knobby knees poking out of the holes in his tatty clothes and he doesn't so much have a waist than a starved belly between his ribs and protruding hips.

I don't think I've ever seen a boy who looks like he survived the Holocaust in real life. I've seen pictures. He looks like those pictures with narrower eyes. I wonder if I planned enough food for the four of us because a fraternal sense that has long sat dormant just kicked in. I want to stuff him with food until he looks normal again, until he looks like a human and not such a…survivor.

He stares at me the moment Crawford opens the door and urges him inside. He says he's never seen an American before, his voice speaking the Japanese quickly, but softly, Crawford translating. I smile very slowly, attempting to keep it looking a little more natural than my naturally unnatural smile. I have no idea how it progresses, but I assume it's a good thing he hasn't run screaming in the other direction. I tell him in broken Japanese that I'm Irish, not American. He shakes his head and points at Schuldig, who just steps into the hall, his newly dyed hair dripping orange onto our new white towels. He says that all Irish are redheads and therefore Schuldig is Irish, not me.

I turn to Schuldig, but he only snorts and mutters something like 'kid logic' before going into the kitchen, probably to raid the cookie jar. He comes back out, an Oreo between his teeth as he snaps off the black layer and licks at the icing, his tongue pink and quick, like a cat's, his blue-gold eyes watching us in a similar feline fashion. The red hair sets off the blue. It's nice. He tells the boy in somewhat better Japanese that he's German and that I make a point of never lying. Then he tells him that he was very generous and decided to leave some hot water for him and to go get cleaned up.

"Supper will be ready in a half hour," I tell them all and watch the boy as he quickly searches for the hall bathroom. Once he is gone, the door closed behind him, we all look at one another with varying degrees of amusement. Excepting Crawford, his face is always impassible. I glance at Schuldig and he gives me an 'I'll tell you later' look. I shrug and go back to the kitchen. Schuldig goes to his room, avoiding any dinner assistant recruitment I might be planning.

The boy is quick in the shower, not more than six minutes and there is no way his scraggly hair is clean, but when he silently appears in the kitchen doorway, I don't send him back. I merely check his hands and ask him to set the table. Once he is finished setting out the chopsticks (he couldn't figure out the use of Western silverware, so I pointed to the chopsticks to make it easier for him), he sits down at the table and watches me as I move about the kitchen and stir the bubbling concoction in the pot on the stove. His expression is a little fearful, his little shoulders tense, but he says nothing. He probably understands the language barrier and knows I wouldn't be able to understand most of what he'd say.

The timer beeps and I call for Crawford and Schuldig. We eat in relative silence, Crawford telling the boy the basics of our job. The boy listens attentively, politely, but doesn't even hesitate to nod when Crawford asks him if he's ever killed before. Schuldig isn't surprised and neither is Crawford, but I am. He's so young…

The boy eats quietly and goes to look at his room while Schu and I wash the dishes, my arms deep in the soapy water and him setting the plates I hand him into the dishwasher.

"Who is this kid?" I ask in swift German, a little worried that the kid might somehow known enough English to know we're talking about him. Schuldig follows suit, his normally loud voice lowered to almost match mine. To be sure, being quiet is an impossibility for Schuldig, but he does try.

"He's from the same part of town we are, every city has one."

The street of painted whores, muggers, murders and gangs; the backwash of the civilized. I lived on streets like this in Dublin between stays in asylums and Schuldig grew up on them. Crawford is the only one of us and many Esset operatives who isn't from the bad part of town. Up until his teenage years (we assume) he had a relatively normal life. We don't know what happened after that. It's kind of like when Jesus disappears from the bible between his preteen years and his thirties. Only Crawford is twenty-six.

"He's one of the orphans," Schuldig continues, "His mother was a drug addict and used him to get her money, mostly dealing and carrying messages and the like. She's dead now. The father is unknown. The man his mother bought drugs from took him in but gave him out as a trick when he needed cash, guess he figured he could get better money that way. Everyone wants to fuck a freak, after all, and Nagi's anything but normal. He's always had his power, but it surged not long ago and he killed a customer. His pimp didn't want him back; sold him to us for virtually nothing."

I gaped at Schuldig, wondering if the unbelievable cruelty he had just described had just entered our house. Schuldig only smiled and poked me in the shoulder.

"He's a tough kid if he's made it this far. It only gets better from here."

I sneer and scrub at the pot in the sink, slopping soap suds and water on the floor in my fury. The grease comes off under my fingernails and I feel a light sweat break out on my brow.

Esset isn't better. We, Swartz, aren't better.

Schuldig gives me a stern look, pushing mental reminders of my own life before joining the team, about the asylum and the months sleeping on the streets of the city, of the anguish my early teenage years were. I pass him a plate and wipe my arms on a dishrag.

"This is better, Far," Schuldig states seriously. I study him for a moment, and then nod.

At least we aren't worse.

* * *

Nagi is extremely helpful around the house. I don't even have to ask him to do something because before I can open my mouth he's done it. He's smart, claims to be self-taught in basic math and reading, so when I start English lessons with him, he picks everything up at a speed I've never seen before. I give him book after book and he devours them all. I'm convinced he's a genius and when I tell Crawford so, the man only smirks enigmatically.

He is under strict orders not to use his power (simply for our safety, since he's untrained), but sometimes he uses it without even realizing. When he taps his foot as he reads, a pile of books or my teacup on the coffee table moves with it. He turns on the television without a remote and he sets the table without touching a single dish. It doesn't matter to me, he can't really hurt me, but I make sure he doesn't do anything around Crawford.

Schuldig and I have taken to him and we do our best to help him learn and keep him out of the way if anything dangerous is nearby. We have to take him to our meetings with Takatori, though I would rather we didn't. The fat, horrible man has a penchant for violence and a tendency to hit his underlings if there is a failure. He's smacked Schuldig around a little, but he's afraid of me. I won't let him near Nagi most of the time.

Crawford has been training the boy in leadership skills and Schu in fire arms. Nagi, as per usual, soaked everything up easily, so we decided to take him with us on a hit. It was Schuldig who made a bit of a mess, but this time Takatori decided to place the blame on Nagi. The moment he hits him I'm on him, all fists and rage. It takes both Crawford and Schuldig and another bodyguard to pry me off the sniveling bastard, who turned around and hit me with a golf club. I can feel my eye pop under the force of it like a grape, the blood running warm, thick and wet from the deflated lid, but I still desperately want to kill him.

Nagi is nursing his reddened cheek, his eyes huge and terrified as he watches me struggle. Most of the time I'm reserved, very quiet and calm and quite pleasant around the house, even on missions I don't really go nuts unless Crawford says I may, but this change in personality, this fuming, screaming, cursing version of me is something he has never seen before. Schuldig's voice echoes in my head even while Crawford is screaming 'Stand down!' in my ear. My remaining eye is watching Nagi watching me and the guilt I see in his face makes my anger disappear. I have the strange urge to give him a teddy bear and tell him to hug it until he feels better.

Ruth used to do that when my parents fought.

Takatori's voice sears the moment into nothing and I seethe at the sound of it.

"Freaks! Get that psycho out of my sight!" The three of them drag me outside, Nagi trailing behind almost meekly. I am still infuriated when they shove me into the car. Schuldig is in the back with me, peering at my damaged eye with a sickened expression. I muse about opening the window for him so he doesn't vomit on me.

"It's gone, Brad. The whole thing is just smashed," he explains as he digs around under the seat for a first aid kit and tears open a gauze pad, pressing and taping it to my face to still the bleeding. "We need to go to a hospital."

"It's doesn't hurt," I counter. I hate hospitals. I hate doctors and the smell and the medications. I have a bad history with hospitals, but who doesn't? Everyone who goes there is either sick or dying. If they aren't those, they're pregnant which might be the same as sick or injured which might be the same as dying.

"Of course it doesn't hurt, but you could bleed to death."

Schuldig has a flair for the melodramatic.

"You're pale enough already."

But at least he still has his sense of humor.

Crawford pulls into the emergency room entrance and lets Schuldig, Nagi and me out, telling us that he has to go back for damage control (no thanks to me). He tells Schuldig to call him when we're done and he'll come pick us up and take us home. Schuldig nods and shuffles us inside.

A pediatrician gives Nagi a packet of ice to press onto his face and I have to sit through a short examination and let the doctors prod and pry and eventually pull the remains of my eye out. The pieces are place on a stainless steel pan and I am staring at my bright iris and pupil from there. The sensation is disorienting and I almost ask them to bottle it in formaldehyde for me. I'm thinking Christmas presents for Ruth in Ireland…

They patch my eye with a similar theme as Schuldig; the white gauze the color of my skin against my face doesn't look all that unnatural. The tell me to replace the bandages once every day, to take some antibiotics and to come back in a week for a checkup. Then they send me on my way, so I meet up with Schuldig in the waiting room and steal his vending machine coffee. Schuldig shrugs and leads us outside to make the phone call.

I sit with Nagi on a smoking bench as Schuldig paces and waits for the call to pick up. I stare at the overflowing ashtray and push the butts into patterns.

"I'm sorry," Nagi says quietly, the English lazy on his lips. I turn to him. His face is so low I can barely see it. "It's my fault."

"No. This is Takatori's fault and I hope he burns in Hell. This is Schuldig's and my fault, but you haven't done anything."

"But.."

As Schuldig would say, 'kid logic'.

"Crawford could've stopped me, but he didn't. He felt the same. Schu too, but he'll never admit it. He's no right to hurt you. You're just a kid."

Nagi's pride flares at that and I smile.

"Maybe not in your head. You're smart, but you're still really young. You're still learning, mistakes happen. His hitting you might've damaged brain cells which will inhibit your learning and then he'd hit you more. Vicious circle, right?"

"He hits Schuldig all the time."

"Well, Schuldig kills more brain cells by himself, so what's a few more? Besides, he's an arsehole. He sometimes deserves it," I laugh. Schuldig glares at me, but says nothing. He looks away to talk into the phone. Crawford apparently picked up.

"One day Takatori will die and we'll be free of any and all hitting," I promise, "But there's no reason for us to put up with him now. Even with that knowledge. Even loonies like us have to have our pride."

Nagi just smiles. He looks almost like Valerie.

* * *

When we get home I replenish Nagi's ice supply and check the swelling on his face. It's red, but there is minimal bruising. Takatori doesn't know how to hurt someone without leaving marks. Crawford knows, I know. Nagi has potential to know. He has the kind of power that will crush someone from inside before they can get the breath to scream. He'll be beautiful in action some day.

I'm going to hate every minute of watching him then.

I stare at myself in the mirror and poke at the gauze, though I know I shouldn't. There is no pain, as expected, but it's so strange. My vision is suddenly so different I can barely hold myself upright. I'll never legally drive again. It won't stop me, but I'll be hell to explain if I ever got pulled over. I have a bit of a lead foot, so this might be more of a relief for the others…yeah right.

Tink is sitting on the ledge of the mirror and I remember that I've missed about a week's worth of medications. Did Crawford forget? Why did I forget? It's unlike me…

"You've fucked up pretty bad, pretty boy," she says, her voice like the goddamn bells she represents. I make a swipe at her with the back of my hand, the hand soap landing with a plastic crash on the tiled floor. She easily flies out of reach, then alights on the ledge again, looking at herself in the mirror and twirling so her green gauzy dress swishes. Her wings flit when she likes what she sees.

Vain creature, she is.

"What exactly have I fucked up besides the nice organization of my life?" I sneer, reaching up to open the cabinet and dig around for my pills. The orange bottles are shoved aside as I search for mine, my vision still askew. I can barely read anything.

Crawford's sleeping pills, still mostly full, Schuldig's migraine medications, almost empty, Ibuprofen tablets, aspirin in huge bottles, the first aid kits and syringes of my psycho sedatives, one needle missing from the pack (no doubt tucked into Crawford's jacket pocket). Where are my goddamn pills!

I throw them all to the floor and tear the shelving out of the wall, the sounds bringing Schuldig's attention. He's pounding on the door now, demanding entry. He senses my instability, can hear the echo of conversation in my head, and it worries him.

"They're on the top shelf," he shouts through the door.

Tink looks down at the mess I made and smiles, "Good luck finding it in that mess, you git."

"Shut your face, tart!" I snap and kneel down to search through the bottles, the labels swimming before my eyes…correction, eye. Schuldig is still pounding on the door and Tink is still laughing at me and I can feel tears well up in my eye sockets and wet my cheeks. My hands are shaking and I slap them over my ears, but Tink's voice pierces their meager protection. Schuldig has stopped pounding and is now picking the lock open, his curses in my head with my curses that come out of my mouth as I'm still looking for my medications.

I can't find them. They're gone. I'm going to be stuck with Tink for the rest of my life. I'm convinced that she'll be degrading me and laughing at me to the day I die now that I don't have my pills and I'm just about ready to smash the mirror and cut my throat when Schuldig crashes through the door and floors me into the mess. He hovers over me, breathing hard, eyes more concerned than I've seen in years, the last time I had a breakdown. He presses my face against his chest and holds me still, one hand picking out the bottle that was there the whole time, his eyes looking at Tink on the sink. She looks back at him innocently, as if she wasn't the cause of all this.

Schuldig lets me go long enough to pop open the bottle and drop a couple of blue pills into my hand, the tiny, round things shining up at me like flying saucers. I don't think I can swallow. I'm too frightened.

"I'll get you a glass of water," Schuldig says as he gets up. His shirt is fisted tightly in my one free hand and I refuse to let him go. Fuck the water, I can chew them up. I just don't want to be alone right now, not alone with Tink. He sighs and sits back down and motions for me to put the pills in my mouth and chew. I do.

"You can't keep doing this, Far," he says softly, pushing my hair back from my face. It's long enough to do that now. I should cut it soon.

He almost says she isn't real, but I glare at him. He knows as well as I that she damn well is real. She's real and the most terrifying thing on this earth. She's a part of me, I know it, something that broke loose when I was young, like a bit of my elbow, just off the tip of the bone that rode my bloodstream to my brain and stuck there. The pills somehow dissolve the bone and this, her. It only comes back when I stop taking them.

"You can't keep throwing fits when she shows up. She can't really hurt you, not really. She's all talk, is all. She just a stupid little farie."

Tink, of course, scoffs and shouts that she is not stupid. Both of us tell her to kindly shut up.

I know the pills are working and that I've been off them longer than I thought because my first reaction is tiredness. I slump back against Schuldig, between his chest and the toilet and my eyelid flutters, still crusty with salt, but too heavy to keep open right now. Schuldig helps me to my feet and guides me to the door.

Nagi is standing there, brought by the commotion. His eyes are, if possible, even larger than before, his pink mouth a little slack. I feel the hair on my neck and arms rise in response to the electro magnetic field he unconsciously built up in his fear. Schuldig senses it too and we stop, him holding me mostly upright.

"Nagi…It's okay now," I say slowly so I don't slur, "A little clockwork needed fixing, do you understand?" I point to my temple and nod, trying to induce him to do the same.

"Hai, Farfarello-kun," he whispers. His eyes switch to the bathroom floor, at the scattered pill bottles and medications and the first aid kit and the toothbrushes and four different kinds of toothpaste. They and the shelves are in the air, floating silently back into their original spots before the mirror door swings closed. He turns to me and nods.

His eyes are wary, worried. He doesn't want the first good thing in his pathetic life to go wrong and I have a feeling I came close to ruining it for him. I was ten seconds away from a trip back to the asylum for suicide watch. What kind of big brother does that to their family?

I smile tiredly at Nagi and Schuldig helps me to my room and into bed. The mattress is new here, scentless and somehow metallic. My pillow is nylon fluff and the coverlet is a second futon since we were too lazy to go out and buy a real comforter. I settle down in the soft, low-thread count sheets (which I have found are warmer and more easily worn in than higher quality sheets (and easier to replace when they wear out)) and I am instantly half-asleep. Schuldig is still sitting on my bed, his hand still on my shoulder, but he is talking to Nagi.

"Do you know anything about Schizophrenics?" he is asking. My mind is already swimming. Schuldig continues, so I assume Nagi shook his head.

"He hears things, sees things that aren't really there. They're real to him, but not to everyone else. These things he sees are very cruel to him, so he's on strong medications for them. He missed a few, but we caught him early, so he'll be fine in a few days. You'll see."

His voice is both assuring and its old snub self. I don't know how he manages it, but I like it. I can sense the boy relaxing, his power lessening into nothing again, the electromagnetic field growing smaller and smaller around his tiny frame.

"Back to normal?" the boy asks and I realize how very young he still is, however smart. A boy his age would want some normalcy, something strong and solid to place a foundation, any foundation on, to trust like he wants to trust us. It kills me that Esset will drive this instinct from him, or try its very best too. I want to be his best friend and his brother, I want to be his guardian angel.

Schuldig's hand pats my shoulder, telling me to go to sleep.

"Yeah," he lies smoothly, "Back to normal."

My last thought I am wondering when the boy's eleventh birthday will be.

* * *

_Fin chapter 5 _

_Please review

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_

**Author's Notes: **Ah, bugger it, I'm bored as hell. I took a salt water bath this morning and it felt great. Of course, now my skin is peeling all over my body, but that's supposed to happen, salt water baths are there to exfoliate. Lord knows I needed it.

It didn't help my hair, though, what was once a nice, blinding red and has faded into a blinding orange-red. I'm hoping it lasts until Otukon in two (what, two? Really? Or is my math that bad?) weeks. After that my hair's going back to brown and I'm growing it out so I look like a girl again. I'm sick of people at work picking on me.

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**To My Readers…er…Reader…:**

(bows) Thank you so much for your kind review. You've no idea how much it means to me to know someone likes my work.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes: **Two days into my first college course and I'm half asleep and dealing with a splitting headache. It's my fault, to be sure. I stayed up late watching movies and had an early morning (unmusically, it seems, because the bus doesn't come that early).. It took me two hours because I got on the wrong bus (space cadet me…) and I got lost in Silver Spring. I shouldn't have read on the bus home either, but I had to get the rest of my courses picked. (shrugs) The Advil's working.

I worship the Advil gods.

Yeah, yeah, shutting up now.

* * *

**6

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**

I know I've mentioned it before, that every one of us in Swartz is a little screwy. Even Nagi, to an extent, suffers from moderate paranoia and was thought to be autistic when he was young, simply because he didn't speak. The paranoia came from Esset training and is now so ingrained into his system that he dreams it and gets up late at night, twice between ten and six, to check the locks on all the doors and windows.

Crawford? Who knows? They say prophets are always mad somehow, from knowing too much. I don't see it, but it must take a long time. He's only twenty-six. It's a few years before he even reaches his prime, his thirties, he says, and a longer time before anything crazy happens to him. I'm only worried he'll go blind before then. His eyesight gets worse every year, if only minutely.

Schuldig is probably the most acute psychotic of us besides me. When he was younger, when he lived with his mother and father, the doctors couldn't figure out what he had, couldn't decide if it was multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia or antisocial behavior he exhibited. Once he left his own asylum, he knew what was wrong with his head. I think that made him a little stranger than when he thought the voices were imaginary. Every now and then his shields get weak and the voices come back.

Like now, actually. At this very moment he's tearing our living room set apart. Crawford is delivering the boy to the airport and I was more or less 'assigned' to watch the German. I suspected Crawford knew something, because usually it's the other way around. It was unsettling, that knowledge.

"I don't want you hear your fucking inner narration!" he screams at me, throwing a table lamp in my direction. I step to the side and hear it shatter on the wall behind me. Great…that looked like an expensive lamp.

"If you threaten this job I'll kill you myself," I shouted back, "I hate the bastard too, but he's still paying, so get a grip!"

I'm not exactly the most sympathetic of people. After my stunt and the golf club, Takatori threatened to fire us if something else pissed him off. He didn't specify to what lengths we could push his 'piss off' meter, but I wasn't about to find out. If we were fired I'd loose much more than just an eye. Schuldig and Crawford and even Nagi would suffer something far worse than my own fear of being tucked back into an asylum. I shivered at the thought.

I marched over to Schuldig, who was ripping a sofa cushion open with his fingernails and got him in a bear hug. I lifted him clear off his feet and carried him to my bedroom. I knew everything was nailed down in this room and he knew better than hurt the books on my bookshelf. I locked the door from the inside and leaned against it, eyeing him. Waiting for him to take his frustration out on me.

I expect it, actually. When Schuldig throws a fit and needs to hurt someone, or stab someone, or just get beaten to a pulp, I'm enlisted. I take pain without notice and dish it out quickly and effectively. I heal fast too, a double benefit.

I expect a kick to my head when Schuldig moves toward me, but no foot comes and I actually take a moment to study him. He doesn't look so angry anymore, but still a little caged. He presses his body against mine and tilts his head back to nose along my jaw. His fingers are tight in my sweatshirt and his booted feet a little too close to my bare ones for comfort. I don't want any broken toes…too hard to walk on.

"You got tall, Far," he whispers, his voice harsh from screaming and reeking of cigarette smoke and headache pills. The man always has a headache. He swallows them like an addict for Ecstasy.

At that thought he leans back and laughs, his eyes slitted.

"Oh, good times," he says, his arms circling my waist, "During the wall(/), do you remember that? There was so much noise, but it was so delicious when on drugs…I miss those days." 

"Not as much as you'd like to think."

"Don't tell me what to think, Farfarello, I was enjoying your silence," he snaps, his voice sharp again. I put up a placating hand and he smiles in his catlike way.

"I'm still amazed you got so tall," he continues, his fingers lifting my shirt up and over my head. His hands skim over my stomach and it ripples at the ticklish touch, my bared shoulders and arms, his blue eyes following them, wide and rimmed with leftover rave mascara. "I remember when you were so thin and small, like little Nagi…You've really turned into something worthwhile."

I frown.

"And what, you were just being a general pervert before?"

Schuldig smiles, eyes glittering in the light of my room.

"When amen't I a pervert?"

I didn't know. When he was asleep maybe? He was almost normal when he was asleep, when he wasn't speaking in tongues or having a sex dream and trying to hump anything in the bed, including me. I'm not much for morning sex. He and I mutually felt mornings were awful and had better be slept through, whenever possible.

"You're not touching Nagi," I snarl, protective over the boy and over my lover. As if I'd let a squirt like him take what I'd worked to keep as my own. Maybe when I went back to church…went to confession…I snorted at the thought and Schuldig smiled teasingly. He had a wandering eye, but I made him stick to an age group that was above my own.

"I won't have to. Everyone else in Esset will, though. Poor little Nagi," he simpered. I shoved him away and slapped him for even suggesting. I'd told Nagi not to let anyone near him, not to trust anything, no matter how much he wanted to. I told him that we were the only ones he could trust and that he had to work his very hardest to come back to the team as fast as he could.

He'd understood every word and promised to obey them. Crawford had promised he would have a good career there. Unless Crawford was lying, which he sometimes did to keep me from going ballistic.

Crawford had also told me not to kill Schuldig tonight. I halted before continuing my assault and leaned back against the door.

"Sometimes I hate you worse than Ruth," I snapped.

Schuldig grinned, obviously pleased with himself.

The little prick.

"Nothing little about it, Darling."

Sex, sex, sex, all the time…The guy has the stamina of a rabbit.

He grins at me and grinds his hips to mine. I groan and move against him in return out of habit. My body knows exactly what I want, but my head is still wondering about Nagi's future and Crawford's lies and Schuldig's goddamn sex drive. Schuldig's hand cups the back of my head and draws me to his mouth, biting and savagely tearing and sucking at my mouth as if I were some kind of fruit and he was a man lost in the desert.

_The desert of No Sex…let's fuck, Far-baby._

Horny piece of shite…

We don't have a romance, we don't love one another. We use one another, possess one another, but we aren't the type to exchange stupid words of adoration or how great it was. We already know. He's not a complicated man, after all.

He's just fucking nuts.

* * *

Crawford gets in maybe two hours later. I hear the door open and close and lock and I hear his coat as he hangs it on the rack. I hear his shoes when he slips them off and his sock sheathed feet when he shuffles toward my room. He knocks on the door and I slowly unwind a softly snoring Schuldig from me and go to open the door. I slip out and walk with Crawford back to the living room so we can talk without disturbing Schuldig. Lord knows the man doesn't get enough sleep as it is. I don't think any of us really ever do. 

He notes my nudity and ignores it effortlessly, as routine alone can allow. Since my return from training, Schu and I have been sleeping together almost every night of the week, excepting the days we have fights and can't look at one another without diving for each other's throats. We take our seats, Crawford in the arm chair and me on the sofa, my eye wary.

"I see he managed to do some damage," Crawford commented flatly, "Less than expected, though, so good work. I don't think he'll be walking about freely for the next couple of days. Will he?"

I snort. "What do you think, or what do you know? Do we have another job or something?"

"No," Crawford says, shaking his head, "Just taking care of my team, that's all."

"Like you took care of the kid?" I snap. He frowns at me and pushes up his glasses.

"I already said before that he-"

"Had to go to training, I know, Crawford. But it's Esset! They eat kids like him for breakfast and use whatever holes left to bugger them! He won't survive there, he's not that kind of person, Crawford…Brad! He'll be brainwashed like the rest of them!"

"Farfarello, we have no choice. Nagi has no choice. And he'll come back to us, he'll be stronger, wiser…"

"He won't be Nagi," I growl, "He won't be the same as before. He won't be our kid…"

"That's a sacrifice we were forced to make to save him, you know this."

I study Crawford and wait, almost pray for any kind of remorse in those eyes. There is nothing for the minutes that tick by. I sigh and get to my feet.

"I would never sell someone so precious to those demons. I'd shoot them first," I say, very quietly. Crawford takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes.

"I know, Farfarello…it's why they couldn't train you…" He gives a quiet chuckle, the first I'd heard in months. "It's why you work so well with us, we're all a bunch of nonconformists. Go back to bed. Schuldig'll wake up if you let him get any colder."

I silently go back to my room and curl around Schuldig. I study his lax face, his very young face. He's what, twenty years old now? He's barely more than a child himself…

I heard Tink chime her way to my nightstand and watch me. For once, she's being nice and I know this is a dream, not a hallucination. She pats my head and whistles a soft song.

"You're all Lost Boys," she says, "But not to worry…Peter will come back. He always does."

* * *

Nonconformists my fucking Irish arse! 

Why don't I just tattoo a shamrock my forehead and carry around a pint, just to top it off!

God, I fucking hate Crawford. He's the prick of pricks, the king prick…Prickzilla…

And Schuldig is whining about being unable to sit down…first thing in the morning. I haven't even had my first coffee and I have to hear his nasally little voice bitch, bitch, bitch…I could throttle him. Crawford gives me a warning look from across the table, sensing my plans and I sit back in my chair, propping a foot on the tabletop, just to piss him off. I settle for glowering at them both in turn.

"We've received news from Esset about Nagi's progress," Crawford says.

"I'm surprised they bothered," I snort, "I figured they'd just send us the body when they were done."

"Get your foot off the table, Farfarello," he snaps back in the way I know he's annoyed at me.

"Make me," I reply, classic rebellious teenager-style. I can see him considering what to say next, how to threaten me without threatening me. I take my feet off and stand up to dump my full plate down the garbage disposal before he can speak.

"My ass fucking hurts," Schuldig whines, oblivious to anyone else but himself…typical.

"That isn't my problem," I snort. Schuldig glares at me, demanding pity he can't leech out even on his better days…he could've at least brushed his hair…he looks like hell.

"No I don't."

And he sounds like a sixteen-year old fucking a donkey.

"What kind of shit have you been watching!"

"We have a mission from Takatori tonight, try not to kill one another before then," Crawford says, disappearing behind his paper. My eyes cut to him and I frown.

"What happened to non-conformity? What about the kid?"

"It isn't convenient at this present time. I, unlike you two, know when it may or may not be opportune to fuck around. I want you two ready before six; guns cleaned, knives sharpened, kits in the car, the whole thing."

He doesn't even look up from his paper and I can't help thinking about how much of a prick he is…He didn't answer about Nagi either.

Schuldig is looking affronted, as if Crawford should care that he can't walk straight, as if his little act is going to have any effect on either of us. We've fucked harder and he was fine…

His blue eyes turn and glare at me. I lift my coffee cup to my lips and smirk.

"Fucking wanker," I whisper.

"Psycho," he snaps back.

"Bitch."

"Cocksucker."

"Nazi whore."

"Schiesskopf!"

I laugh and set my mug in the sink.

I turn and leave before he can bark out another insult. My door is locked behind me and I dig out the small collection of knives I possess. They are neatly packed, safe in their tough leather sheaths. I finger my favorite blade: a sharp, thin stiletto(/) and flip in the air with a practiced hand. My eye follows it as I catch it.

My hand-eye coordination is improving…good.

I strap a belt lined with various sheaths around my hips and select a few styled knives, a heavy hunting knives and the slender stiletto from before, among others. I slip a butterfly knife into my coat pocket, just in case, and tuck another small knife inside the fold of my boots. I have a small pistol that is kept in my other coat pocket, but I dislike using it on principal. It just feels inhuman to kill someone like that, impersonal, when death is that only thing all humans really ever share. I think it's why the world has gone downhill so quickly since the last World War, because of impersonal weapons.

After all, if there were more people who looked in someone else's face when they ripped open their gut, there might be less killing. There might also be more work for people like us. In a fanciful world, we might've been mercenaries…

Yeah, right…

* * *

At six sharp, the three of us are armed to the teeth and meet in the living room area. Schuldig is wearing that deplorable green jacket and Crawford his signature black suit. The both of them are wearing shoulder holsters for their guns of choice, both semi-automatic…lots of bullets. They too have knives, but they prefer to use them as last minute weapons. They are both in their little zones, Schuldig wearing his self-assured smirk, his eyes cold, and Crawford looking a little more like an impersonal Roman statue than before. 

We ride the elevator downstairs to a black car that waits for us, black and sleek and it looks like it's from the Yakuza…couldn't they have come up with something a little less obvious? Perhaps something bright yellow with green flames on the sides? And a siren…

We arrive at the spot, some business building in the middle of the city. The sides are completely glass, tinted dark from the lack of personnel in the inside and the nighttime reflection on the windows. We get in when Schuldig twists a bodyguard's mind and are on the elevator to the penthouse in a mere two minutes, elevator music playing in our ears. I pull out a knife and christen in with a kiss, the steel brand new and unbloodied.

It'll be good to slam it into someone's eye, vengeance for loosing mine. It'll be good to hear them scream and beg me not to kill them. It'll be good to hear them pray to a god who doesn't care.

The doors slide open and Schuldig immediately latches onto one of the guards' minds, leaving the others to Crawford and me. Our leader and I step out, my knife ready and slashing toward a terrified young guard. Crawford's gun is letting out muffled shots, held back by the silencer.

They fall beneath us silently and we're on the move, deeper into the building, looking for our target. I go before the others, searching out quarry with a zeal that makes my blood rush hot. I can smell their terror around the corners they hide by, the sweat and urine of those who know they're going to die. I can smell the blood of their comrades under my fingernails. I adore it. I savor it. I lust for more.

I snuff out life after life with more violence than the last; slicing a throat neatly from ear to ear, just under the jaw, letting the bowels of another man fall loose under my blade and silencing his cries with a crushed voice box under my boot, a simple, easy snap of the neck with my knees as the man squirms in throes of suffocation.

I am clawing at a man's face, literally tearing it away from the eye sockets to his chin with my fingernails and nearly panting in the sheer thrill it gives me to hear him scream when Crawford orders me to stop. Schuldig kills the man under me with a flash of his mind and the guard falls silent, blood oozing from his ears. I throw his body down and growl at the German. He ignores me, though, watching Crawford pump another shot into the target, just for good measure.

Then they turn to leave, quick and efficient as ever. We ride the elevator down in silence and I settle my breathing. I haven't even broken a sweat, not a heavy one. We kill the door guard that let us in as soon as the doors to the lobby open and leave. We get back into the black car and Crawford immediately pulls out his phone to call Takatori and confirm the kill.

Schuldig is sitting next to me, the entire side of his body pressed against mine and his tongue lapping at some of the blood on my neck, just below my ear. I shiver and I know he's as aroused as I am. Killing is erotic to people like us, murder is merely a form of foreplay to the insane, like us.

_Admit it, you love it._

/I call top, when we get home./

_You haven't let me be top in ages, Far…_his mental voice whines at me. I consider it for a moment, then sigh. He smirks again, a superior look in his eye, like a cat who just got his belly scratched and was presented a rather large fish.

He bites my earlobe and breathes a soft laugh in my ear.

_I promise I'll be nice, dahling…_

/You'll be no such thing./

Crawford ignores us and continues talking.

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_Fin chapter 6_

_Please review

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_

**Author's Notes: **

(/)Berlin Wall

(/)This is actually a weapon. The shoe came after its creation. Both are of Italian make and the shoe is called a stiletto because the heel is long and thin, like its namesake.

Also, as a side note, Farfarello's name also has Italian origin. I know I mentioned it before, but a demon in Dante's The Inferno was named Farfarello and I would assume that this is where the name would come from. It makes more sense than 'Butterfly'. I annunciated a certain obsession with Italy in the first or second chapter, thus involving it effectively.

Woohoo for me, now how many of you actually give a shit?

* * *

**To My Readers:**

**StarTrekObsessed: **You think my writing is awesome? (grabs and hugs) Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so happy you like it enough to put it on your story alert list. I know I made Far lucid compared to other fanfics, but since I decided to make him schizophrenic (which is incurable, but treatable) and I wanted him to tell this story in a fashion that could actually be read coherently (mostly), he had to be that way. Besides, of the research I did on the subject of mental instability, medications, etc. and reading the opinions of other writers on the subject of characterizing Far correctly, it wouldn't do much good to have him locked up the whole time. How boring would that be? Thirty chapters of "the walls of my cell are white"…

But enough long-winded replies, thank you so very much for your review and I hope you enjoy reading the rest of this as much as I enjoy your wonderful feedback.

**Roxie Faye: **Do you hear that? It's my ego swelling to the size of a walrus. I haven't had a review this good in my life and it's exciting you think so highly of my writing. Thank you!

Yes, I know I have few reviews, but you know how it is, it's such a pain giving feedback to those desperate writer wannabes (laughs), just joking. I have no idea why there are so few, but I hope it isn't anything I've done. And I'll get to twenty someday, maybe even beyond that.

I like Nagi. Most everyone likes to portray him as a forty-year-old in a kid's body, but I wanted to take a different route. Since this is the beginning of Swartz and not everyone is trained (Farf and Nagi), I wanted to use the opportunity to show that he is indeed a very strong child who was underprivileged by his lack of guidance. When he comes back you'll see how great the change is and how Esset schools have a way of altering people, especially impressionable children.

I like to think of Swartz being close, like a family rather than just a team. If they are this close it can make them an even more effective killing machine, a leg up compared to Weiss. Later on in the story you'll see how important the ties forged early on will hold them together through rough times. Crawford is kind of like a surrogate father or very eldest brother and his responsibility can make him seem cold when he's really looking after his team and thus his livelihood. He lives for the team, which then brings up the saying 'Do nothing to harm the team'. Later on everyone else adapts to this thinking. Schu is almost like a female influence on Nagi (who would be the youngest brother or son) and while he's manipulative at the beginning, his thinking will later change.

Farfarello once had a sister with his adoptive parents in Ireland (remember in the anime?) who he did kill. Even if he later did have a raging fit and slaughtered them all, I can imagine the ties between them were very close, as siblings ideally should be. He later regretted killing Valerie (I guessed on the name) and managed to think of Nagi as a kind of replacement. He takes protecting Nagi as a very serious job in pay for his sin against his sister (kind of how Aya/Ran lives in the place of Aya-chan, if you catch my thinking) and would die for him if asked.

Yes, Farfarello is insane, very seriously so, but even the mad can care. I do a lot of research, reading and the like to assume so broadly, and while some are completely at a loss, I don't think Farf is. Think about it. If Farfarello was so entirely crazy that he couldn't care, how could he function? Those kinds of people are useless to teams, and they kill the family bond Crawford needs to keep his team together. Farfarello needed interpersonal skills to work with others, so I gave him medications. Even on them his hallucinations could come back (it happens to people in real life too), but he's typically stable.

Not to say he doesn't enjoy killing them. His goal in life is still to get revenge on God and Ruth for hurting him so. We mustn't forget that.

Actually, about Farfarello not being severely mentally impaired...his hallucinations are very impairing and can even lead to self-destruction. Typically, Schizophrenia gets worse as one goes on, even with therapy and medications. I'm not claiming to be an expert (I'm anything but), but it's only a matter of time before he goes completely insane. (Still, I needed him lucid enough to speak coherently for this fic).

Well, have I talked enough? I'm sorry, I am just excited you enjoyed reading my work so much (to the point of minor revelations!). You're wonderfully thoughtful review really made my day!

(takes brownie and hands a Kleenex) And not to worry, I've no intention to stop writing this fic. I enjoy it far too much for words.

What can I say? I love the crazies.

If you liked this so much, try reading some of my other Farfarello fics. They're in my profile site.

**Morbid Knight: **Thank you for your compliments!

I was trying to keep them realistic compared to people I know, actually. Since most of my friends whose traits I surreptitiously 'borrowed' for each of the characters aren't morning people, I just couldn't see anyone in the Swartz household that way either. They supposedly keep late nights for their 'work', so I can't imagine Crawford (or any of them) staying up late and getting up early on a consistent schedule. His immune system would crash and he can't afford to get sick.

Thanks for the review!


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes: **Don't chew on Safety Pins.

* * *

**7

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**

The moment we get home and drop our shoes by the door, Schuldig grabs me and drags me toward the bathroom. All the blood on my skin and clothes has dried by now and it flakes off as I move, stains the carpet. Housekeeping won't ask, though. They never ask. It's what their paid to do, like everyone else that keeps our lives comfortable.

Schuldig shoves me into Crawford's bathroom, the entirety of it far more lavish than our own. The shower in the bathroom between Schuldig and my rooms can barely fit one of us, but Crawford has one of those combination bath and showers that are popular everywhere else in the world but Japan. Schuldig locks the door and I run the bathwater as hot as it will go. The mirrors are steamed up and Schuldig's hair starts to frizz in a matter of moments. The air is thick and heavy and my eyes droop.

We undress and do a preliminary cleanup with the red washrags, kept for just such a purpose. I clean off most of the blood on my face and neck and hands and check for any wounds. I am bleeding from a small bullet graze on my left shoulder, but it isn't serious. Schuldig makes sure he isn't injured as well and yanks his hideous yellow bandanna off and tosses it to the side.

He turns the water off and slips into the bath, pulling me along with him, grinning like a maniac.

* * *

It's my free day, the one day of the week that I'm allowed to go out and about, see the world outside of our apartment. It's a way to keep me from getting restless, even though Crawford and Schuldig have to physically shove me out the door on most days. Truth is, I'm not fond of cities. They only look great in pictures and from our grime-covered windows. Down among the ants, it's intolerable. The noise of taxis and the stepping of millions of feet at the same time is unnerving. The chatter in a language I barely understand is enough to set my teeth on edge. I grind them the whole time I'm out and I can feel the enamel suffering from it.

On these days I go grocery shopping, or pick up books from the English bookstores. Once I mistakenly stepped into a museum and spent so long in there that Schuldig and Crawford had to come and take me home. On some days I'd go to the graveyards and shrines, not to soak up any of the culture, just to find some peace from the city, somewhere where I could hear myself think, assuming I had something worthwhile to ponder over.

I growl up at the apartment building from the sidewalk, head and shoulders taller than everyone else here, and shove my hands into my pockets as deep as they will go. It's chilly this winter and my coat isn't thick enough to fend off the cold air completely. I was more unwilling that usual to go out today because of this deplorable weather, but Crawford said I had no choice because I'd been avoiding it all week.

What did I say about him being a prick?

Just as I am about to walk off in my chosen direction, I feel someone slip their hand into my pocket and grasp tightly to mine. My head snaps around so fast my neck cracks and I'm already pulling a knife when I recognize that flash of disturbingly red hair. Schuldig smiles up at me from under that messy mop and shoves his sunglasses back into place on his head. His eyes are flickering with an 'I got you' look, teasing me when I really don't feel it was fair.

Schuldig's a prick too…

"Thought you might like some company," he said by way of explanation.

"We can catch colds together. I'm touched," I grumble and shove the knife back into my pocket before anyone can see it. The black-haired and vacant-eyed businesspeople pass by without so much as a glance in our direction. It's Japan, they've probably seen weirder.

Either that or Schuldig is mentally telling them to ignore us, which is fine by me too.

"Come on let's go get some coffee," Schuldig says and starts to pull me through the crowd, obviously knowing where he's going. His hand is still deep in my pocket and wound around mine. Half a block later and we step into a slightly stuffy little commercial coffee shop. The line parts before us and Schuldig orders our drinks; mocha somesuch and whatever for him and plain boring black coffee for me. It's too early in the morning for disgustingly sugary drinks. They make me sick anyway.

Schuldig hands me my steaming cup and sits down at a tiny table in front of a window. We silently watch the morning crowd come and go for another hour, not really talking except quiet observations about people's appearances or thoughts. I'm studying the electric colored hair of the girl behind the counter when Schuldig's eyes focus on me. I pretend not to notice for a few moments, but he doesn't look away.

"What?" I ask, finally turning to look at him. He's just smiling at me.

"We haven't been on a date in a long time," he observes.

"Don't flatter yourself," I snort, "The presumption isn't very appealing."

"Let's go do something fun! Date stuff!"

This is why I hate going out. I get dragged into all sorts of shit.

"And it's almost Christmas. We can go shopping."

"You failed to notice the antichrist sitting across the table from you," I say flatly. Schuldig just blinks at me, as if the thought never occurred to him. Then he gasps, as if appalled.

"You mean you don't celebrate the birth of our lord and savior!" he demands in the perfect mockery of a horrified Christian. I would've gotten the same reaction if I ever went back to my hometown. The resemblance isn't funny and I almost reach across the table to smack him.

"You just want to charge huge amounts of money on Crawford's cards. He told you not to."

"Right, and I listen to him." He flips his hair over his shoulder and smirks, bares a few teeth.

"Smarmy little prick."

"How about this," Schuldig says with a sigh, leaning on the table, "I'll let you burn down the first tree and manger scene we see after the holidays if you go with me, okay? Besides, you've grown so much this year that I really have no idea what clothing size you are."

"Liar. You just want to drag me into department stores."

"At least I won't make you hold my purse."

* * *

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I am. Schuldig dragged me into an overcrowded mall and is now piling racks of clothes in my arms. Horrible, brightly colored, garish things I would never consider for a second that he expects me to go and try on. I think he just threw a pair of purple trousers on top of the mess, but I can barely see over the mound.

Somewhere to my left a gentleman with a nametag I can't read is asking if we need any help. I hate his timid little voice. Schuldig latches onto him and smiles in a way that makes me a little sick.

"Why yes, you can," Schu purrs sweetly, putting his arm around the man's shoulders, which only makes him twitter. Japanese people don't like to touch…weird for a country with as dense a population as this…

"He would like to try these on for size." I grit my teeth as Schuldig passes the blame to me. I can feel his self-satisfaction.

"Of course, please, right this way."

When I drop the clothes I find myself in the closet-like space of the dressing rooms. I fend off a mild panic attack at the close quarters and Schuldig is at my back in a moment, his fingers smoothing over my shoulders to calm me, his mind pressing into mine and projecting boring images of tranquil waters.

I shove him out and set about trying on the clothes, lacking any intention of actually buying them.

Well, what do you know; there _is _a pair of purple trousers in here after all.

* * *

"All those beautiful clothes and you settle for the usual. Christ, Farfarello, you're so boring sometimes," Schuldig complains loudly over the roar of the crowds. We're walking out of the third store and he is carrying twice as many bags as I am. I shrug, used to this complaint.

"'Usual' works for me," I grunt. We shove our way through the crowd without any particular direction.

Who ever thought shopping was a good date? He or she should be shot.

Schuldig laughs.

"Monochromatic is so last century."

"As if you would know. I prefer to think of it as Dada."

"You're spitting upon the face of common society?"

"When aren't I?" I say with an elusive smile. He just keeps walking.

"What do you want for Chirstmas, Far?" he asks, completely outside of the conversation we were just having. I take its change in stride. I can see on his face the crowds are finally getting to him. We should go home before his headache gets worse. He shakes his head and pulls me to the side, eyes jovial and serious in a strange combination.

"What do you want?"

"Ruth's head on a stake," I say with equal seriousness. He laughs and shakes his head.

"Something I can do that wouldn't take away from your enjoyment."

"I could use another bible…"

"No."

"You mean something that Crawford hasn't already prohibited?" I groan. He just nods.

I twist my fingers into his hair and think. I don't really want much of anything. I have everything I need, so why would I want something more? Frugality isn't what drives my thoughts, but I don't see a point on wasting money on useless things.

I could get something that pertains to the job; a new knife, or maybe a fresh whetstone (though I just recently bought one myself). I could ask for a set of anatomy books. I could ask for any number of things, really, just for the job.

I might want books. I've read almost all the ones I possess cover to cover. I'll read any genre, any setting and storyline, however pathetic; poetry, literature, non-fiction, tactics used in the Civil War, algebra textbooks, anything. But then, Schuldig was just complaining about the 'usual'. He hates my black and white and gray clothing, its simplicity and comfortability and 'lack of taste or style'.

"Sweatpants are not style," he spits and I laugh softly.

I think some more, my fingers still twisting knots into his long hair and the crowds passing by us and pressing against his brain. At any other time I would love to watch him fall apart under this pressure, but not right now. I press my palm against his cheek and meet his gaze, open my mind to his to maybe let him ground himself, get his shields back in order.

"How about a vest," he offers. I raise an eyebrow.

"I already have a vest, two, actually."

"A blue one…You'd look pretty in blue…"

"Pretty isn't the look I typically seek," I say, the same incredulous lilt in my voice. He laughs and takes hold of my hand to lead me through the crowds toward some unknown direction.

* * *

Christmas morning is the worst morning ever conceived by the human imagination. I used to adore it as a child, sit up all night for some fat elf to shimmy down the chimney and hand me a puppy or something. I still can't sleep, but I stopped waiting for Nick years ago. He doesn't make appearances in hospitals and I've been an awful person these past few years. I don't think he'd even drop by to hand over the coal.

Schuldig is sleeping, spread eagled, mouth open. His limbs are spread wide across the mattress so that I have no room whatsoever. An hour ago he had a nightmare, or someone else's nightmare, and I didn't have the heart to wake him up again. It wasn't as if I'd sleep. I never slept on Christmas morning.

I get up slowly and pace the room. In an hour the alarm clock will buzz and Schuldig will be up in record time, ready to open presents and devour whatever breakfast I serve. I was thinking about making something utterly disgusting this year, but when he ate the blood sausage last year without blinking an eye I gave up on trying. He's German, he's probably eaten worse.

Crawford wouldn't even try it. He knew better.

The city around our little apartment is humming with activity, alive and aware and excited. The air is permeated with hope and I can't repress the snort of amusement. Hopes are worthless on days like these. Everyone is disappointed somehow. It's never enough for people to just be alive, to be well and moving, talking, breathing, praying…

It's never enough to just be…

Humanity is a paradox I rather wouldn't ponder. I wake Schuldig up a half hour early and he drags himself out of bed to the living room. Crawford refused to invest in a tree this year, so we just piled gifts on the coffee table. Our leader is still in bed and isn't expected to wake up until well after noon. He had a late night attending Takatori's Christmas party as a personal bodyguard. Besides, he doesn't like Christmas, as an atheist.

Just as well, he pisses me off in the morning. I start the coffee maker and plop down on the sofa next to Schuldig. We each grab a present and start unwrapping it. His paper goes flying in all directions while I peel mine apart carefully so there's less to pick up. It's funny to watch him sometimes. His face lights up with that ugly emotion of hope, his smirk turning a little boyish without him noticing.

He looks years younger. He looks his age.

* * *

_Fin chapter 7_

_Please review

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_

**Author's Notes: **Let me warn you now. The next chapter is both short and very strange.

I've had a bad few weeks and it's bled into my writing.

(licks up blood) Slurp.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes: **I live in a glass house and not a word; I eat the pork rinds, spit out the fat and act my part to entertain the birds. In my paranoia I know the neighbors watch my every move; I know my telephone is bugged. Not a word, not a word.

* * *

**8

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**

I have discovered Radiohead. They've been out for a couple of years, even made it big with a song called 'Creep', and I never knew it.

Of course, I wasn't exactly a functioning member of society then.

Actually, Schuldig found them. He came home with a bag full of CD's from an English music store somewhere in the city and handed me half of what he'd picked up. I don't usually listen to music, but this was good, this was fantastic. British Pigs at the microphone, but one has to admit to their unique style.

Listening to them makes me want to paint something, anything, blood smeared on a canvas. Red to brown finger painting, making fun of the white collars, making fun of my fathers. Both of them, the mad and the sane, my uncle and a stranger.

Ruth was such a slut.

Schuldig has been enjoying the Christmas season, enjoying the abusive families that gather together out of skewed traditions, enjoying their curses and screams and moans. I can barely stand it if the neighbors play their music loudly, I don't know how he manages. Whenever I ask him about it, he just ignores me.

Crawford stayed in his room all day; neither of us know what he was up to. He was silent and Schuldig's telepathy was cut sharply off with the man's shields.

At least he's still alive. That's good enough for me.

So Schu and I have been left to our own devices. We stung kite string all over the bathroom because Crawford wasn't there to tell us not to and spent the whole day watching both American and Japanese movies, surviving on popcorn alone. It's a nice day, and there are popcorn kernels stuck between the cushions of the couch from a food fight we staged across the living room and Godzilla is quietly destroying Tokyo on the screen. Schuldig's head is propped under my chin, his thick hair wound around my fingers and his whole body lax against mine. It's peaceful.

Every Christmas should be like this.

Schuldig's thin fingers are playing with a button on my shirt, the flesh pale against the gray fabric and white plastic fastener. There are freckles even on his fingers and his nails are short and clean and pink with life. He has a hangnail on his middle finger. The back of his hand is smooth and the palm fleshy and soft with an easy life. His breath stirs the shirt under his mouth and he looks up at me, his blue eyes soft, hazy, tired. He just woke up, apparently.

"You never shut up, do you?" he says, but his voice lilts with the pleasantness of a good mood. I relax again, realizing only now that his words had made me tense.

Schuldig is naturally moody, it's expected that his thinking is swayed a little from the telepathy. He's typically whiny and spontaneous, but sometimes when his emotions sway from what I call 'normal', both Crawford and I leave to avoid any kind of mental attack. He can be vicious, if he's feeling that way.

"I'm Irish," I murmur back and pull his head back against my chest, "We like to talk."

He just snorts and goes back to sleep and I finish Godzilla on my own.

_Idiot, slow down. Slow down. Slow down._

It never occurs to me that this might be a warning.  
_

* * *

_

I shouldn't be, but I'm wearing the vest. Its winter and I'm outside wearing a vest.

I must be mad. I'll catch my death like this.

And the only reason I'm wearing it now is because Schuldig suggested it. I really shouldn't listen to that man. He's wearing a coat and he's complaining of cold…

He looks over at me and smirks and there is nothing more I want in the world than to kill him.

Crawford gives me a look and I flip him the finger.

We get back to work.

* * *

It's getting hard to discern day from day, Monday from Tuesday to Friday to Wednesday…

I don't know why, but I haven't been taking my pills for about three weeks now. It was stupid of me, but I kept hiding the pills under my tongue when Crawford checked to make sure I'd swallowed them, as he does every day. I spit them back into the water when he isn't looking. I wonder if he knows. I wonder why Schuldig hasn't told him. I wonder why Tink hasn't shown up.

I wonder about the boy.

_Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths. He buzzes like a fridge; he's like a detuned radio. _

The boy…

_Karma Police, arrest this girl, her Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill and we have crashed her party. _

My head feels like static, I set my chopsticks down and try to feel for the bunny ears antennae. There is nothing there, even though I know there should be. Crawford and Schuldig give me equal quizzical looks.

I hate Esset…I wish they were gone. I want the boy back. I want him safely tucked under my wing. I ruffle my feathers and shift on my perch on the chair. I avoid my rice and tear into the sauced meat in my bowl.

"Farfarello?" the redhead asks, his voice a timber I haven't heard in…

Wait…when have I heard his voice before? Who is this person? Where am I and why aren't I at home? Where's Valerie…mother…father…

"Farfarello?"

My name is Jei. Who the hell is Farfarello?

I look wildly around for an exit, my chair tumbling to the floor as I make my escape. Both of the strange men are on their feet, chasing me.

Who are these people? What do they want with me? Was I kidnapped? I run faster, slamming doors to rooms and trying to lock them with panic-stricken fingers. Tink is fluttering by my head, looking worried.

"Poor Peter Pan, lost in the woods full of pirates," she hums softly as she alights on my shoulder and curls her fragile fingers around the shell of my ear, "But you look a frightful one yourself, child."

"What do you mean?" I ask, my voice barely a breath from my mouth. She points to a mirror and I gape at the man inside of it, preternaturally terrifying. He is scarred, sharp-faces and catlike, a black eye patch stark against his icy white face.

"That isn't me!"

"Where are your lost boys, Peter? Why did you grow up?" she pleads mournfully as the locks on the door jitter and clink as the two strangers try to break in, shouting at me to calm down, to come out.

I curl around myself in the bathtub, the furthest part of the room from the door. It only takes them a moment to pick the lock and burst inside.

_This is what you'll get_

_This is what you'll get_

_This is what you'll get when you mess with us. _

_Karma Police, I've given all I can, it's not enough. I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll. _

_Repeat chorus. _

The redhead comes toward me as the one with glasses heads for the cabinet behind the mirror, coming out with a syringe full of opaque, white liquid. The redhead steps toward me, his eyes showing his unease even though his movements are sure. I can hear something echoing in the room, someone's voice that is both strange and calming. My shoulders do not relax, but I don't pull away when he wraps his arms around me and holds me against his chest.

It feels safe there and I briefly shut my eyes.

"Its okay, Fa-Jei. Jei…just calm down. Deep breaths, that's right, deep…in, out…in, out…Everything's okay, you're okay. No one's going to hurt you," he murmurs against my hair as his fingers stroke almost lovingly against my back. My breathing finally slows down, just as directed and I focus on his voice even when I feel the cold steel needle slip into the arm that's cradled by warm fingers, firm against my pulse. My ear is against the redhead's heart and I can feel it fluttering, I can smell his fear, but what does he have to be afraid of?

/Oh, my little crazy one…/ that echoing whisper curls around my thoughts, comforting and close and smelling faintly of cat.

I look up at the redhead and can feel my lips parting in wonder. I press my fingers against his long cheek and smile slightly.

"I'm sorry, Wendy Darling. Tink said the medicine was poisoned," I whisper. The man with the glasses frowns, I guess confused, but he doesn't matter. My Wendy just smiles and nods, strokes my hair.

"It's okay. Just get some sleep. You don't want to be tired when the boys go out to fight Mr. Hook."

I smile and somehow I know that Tink is glaring at him.

_For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself. Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself. _

_For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself. Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself.

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_

_Fin Chapter 8_

_Please Review

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_

**Author's Notes: **Yes, I know Wendy was a mother figure, but it fit for this scene, so I kept it. Farfarello's view of Schuldig will vary from between Wendy and Tiger Lily for God's knows what reasons. I'm surprised I wrote this at all. It's surprisingly not what I had originally intended and yet it still manages to work.

You see, I've been going through a lot of family issues recently and it's been really rough on the whole creative-without-being-whiny idea. The thing it, the way this turned out, it actually fits into my life and I hadn't even realized it.

Farfarello hates his real mother. I hate my real mother.

But then pull his Peter Pan hallucinations into the picture and you get Wendy, the example of a perfect mother, a wonderful, beautiful and kind mother. I picture my own fanciful world on the desire of a motherly figure a lot like Wendy Darling, same as Farfarello might. The only difference is that I'm not clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, but not all of us can be perfect.

The Lyrics in italics are from Radiohead's album, 'OK Computer'. The two songs used are 'The Tourist' and 'Karma Police'. God only knows why I used them, except that 'Karma Police' inspired this chapter.

That and I just like Radiohead.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Notes: **Yeah, life still sucks. Class is four days away from being over and college is three weeks away from starting. I started reading Wraeththu, all 800 pages. I'm about a hundred pages in and I'm enjoying it for all the trouble it is to carry around. My hair has gone from red to orange, my roots are growing out and I'm too lazy to really care. I'm not cutting it again, so whatever. If people have a problem with it, screw them. My dog doesn't care and his opinion is really all that matters. If he still loves me, I must be doing something right.

Headaches are depressing…Emo music doesn't help either.

Fanfiction is being evil and not letting me do the little underline things... please bear with me.( _**NS**_) will equal a 'new scene', or change of scene. Thank you all for your patience. And SOMEONE go tell fanfiction to fix it!

**9**

She was standing next to me in that dark, deserted place. It felt like the air was pressing me down, though I didn't move. The vast, gray nothingness of it reminded me of a desert I've never seen. We don't have deserts from wherever I come from…

Wherever that was…

Her fiery hair bushed around her pale face, but not for a second did I doubt who she was. She smiled at me and her blue eyes glittered with the nonexistent light when she approached me, the green smear of clothing swirling around her long frame. She was so much younger here; perhaps still a teenager, from the day we first met, or before then. Before the roundness of her cheeks had finally left, before childhood did away with her.

"Tiger Lily?" I asked softly, my voice echoing in the empty space. I wanted to move closer to her, wrap my arms around her and take her somewhere, anywhere else, where the thick jungle would close on all our open sides. I felt exposed out here. I couldn't fly. This place sucked happy thoughts away like bats for blood.

"Schuldig," she said, her voice trilling nasally. It was so suddenly not what I'd expected that I flinched and lost any interest in moving closer. She did it for me, anyway, pulling me against her body. It was then I noticed she didn't have breasts. She, or rather _he_, refused to let me pull away.

"Schuldig," he repeated even as I watched his face turn from effeminate to something more masculine, his cheekbones high and sharp, his smile a little manic and his eyes took on a haunted quality.

"Schuldig?"

"And you are Farfarello."

I shook my head and tried to pull away again, but the thickness of the air left me gasping in his arms, somewhere I inherently knew I shouldn't be. Men didn't hug other men.

"My name is Jei, and you're Tiger Lily," I argued softly, trying to think him back into a woman's body. His image barely flickered, his strength in this place surpassing mine easily. He pressed into me with more force and held my gaze with his.

"You are Farfarello, and you're having a psychotic episode," he said calmly, but forcefully. I briefly saw a flicker of desperation in his pale eyes, but it was gone before it registered fully in my thoughts.

"Do you understand me?" he demanded.

I bit my lip and pulled away. He didn't struggle, his grip failing as I stumbled away as quickly as possible.

"Leave me alone!" I screamed, searching for a way out of this vast nothingness. There had to be a door somewhere, through which I could escape. I tried to find a wall I could search with my fingers, but there was nothing.

Nothing existed but this apparition and me. I was on the verge of tears.

He didn't advance, just stood there waiting for me to calm down, any patience he had draining away by the second as he watched me. He looked like he would start cursing at me and attack me, but he held firm, unwilling to fit with my ideas. He rubbed my senses raw simply by existing.

"Go away!"

"Farfarello…"

"Jei! Jei, Jei, Jei, Jei, Jei! How many times do I have to tell you, you freak!" I clawed at the floor, wondering if it was there at all.

He had been standing there, somewhere near but far from me one second, then kneeling next to me in another. There was not sound, no whoosh of air in his movement, no flair of drama. He was just there and then not. It terrified me. His hands grasped mine and he held them to his face.

"What do you feel?" he whispered, pressing his cheeks into my open palms. His blue eyes assessed me, his lips set in a line that dared me to even think about clawing at the face presented so openly. He obviously trusted me, though I somehow knew he shouldn't have. I decided to answer his question.

"Nothing. I feel nothing."

"And there are no walls in this place, no floor and no ceiling. We aren't outside, as there is no light and no dark. We aren't dead, I promise you, but very much alive, so how can we survive without breathing?"

He was right. I hadn't taken a breath in several moments and it hadn't bothered me that I might've been suffocating until he mentioned it. I took a great gasp of air and he smiled something vicious.

"This isn't real," I answered, simply because that was what he wanted to hear.

What was reality anyway, but a farie tale? There was nothing beyond this, and nothing within this.

"That's right, Farfarello," he said, what he claimed to be my name dagger sharp as it fell form his tongue, "This is a dreamscape, and unfortunately not one of your most imaginative ones, either. You're dreaming, and that's all."

This was all one big nightmare? I didn't believe it.

"You're lying," I seethed, my fingers clawing against his face. He pulled away with a sigh, but kept a hold of my wrists.

"You're hallucinating, rather avidly, more so than usual. I hope it isn't because the psychosis is getting worse. You'll be no use to us like this, you know," he said softly, thoughtfully, almost as if I wasn't there at all, "Christ, did you have to stop taking your medications so fucking long, Far?"

I growled and pulled my hands away, a rising tide of anger and annoyance giving me strength. He took notice of me then, his eyes wide in matching wrath.

"Go away," I shouted, shoving him away. My voice was deeper now, my grip on his nondescript clothing stronger. He caught himself and shoved back.

"What? You being pissy because I mentioned your evil little God, or are you still in denial?"

"Fucking maniac, telling lies, invoking that hack…" I muttered and pulled away, started fading slightly, somehow, into the background.

"You're the maniac, you stupid bastard!" he shouted back.

"You don't know what you're doing, talking about that cult…"

He realized he had thrown me off my fixation on a brief mental hiccup and into a full-fledged religion-induced episode. My mind gathered tightly around that anger, that burning black hatred and I jumped on its back to ride to the center of my thoughts, my desire to destroy something so indiscriminatingly evil. I was a godsend, which implied the paradox of my being. I laughed.

He pulled out my mind with a resonating "Fuck!"

I laughed. My physical body somewhere following suit with my cackles.

_**NS**_

I came to sometime in the night. The clock on my nightstand read 3:24, and I guessed it was early by the dim outside my window and the lack of traffic noise in the city proper, just a couple blocks away. I was snuggled safely in a pristine white straight jacket, my arms a little stiff from the position and my head drowsy from the drugs I had just come out from under.

I was briefly disoriented by my lack of depth perception, but easily remembered loosing my eye. My stomach burned with the familiar hatred for that man, Takatori, and the promise I had made to myself that I would one day enjoy killing him.

Schuldig was in a chair by the bed, slumped over his chest as he slept silently. His hair shrouded his face, but I could see it was drawn, the cheekbones too sharp against his sallow skin. I wanted to brush that hair away and hold his hand, revel in the comfort of his arms over my waist as I held him, but my straight jacket prevented me. I didn't want to kick him awake, but it felt cruel of me to just leave him there with the impending crick in his neck when he woke up again.

"Schuldig," I whispered and gently brushed our mental link with my mind. He had constructed a link in the team so we could contact one another through him if we were in a position where we couldn't speak or were too far away to be heard. It was permanent until death, he claimed, but I still preferred to check and make sure it was there every week or so between work. Crawford liked to use it in place of radios and headphones and even now I remembered his sharp, cold voice in my head, barking orders when I was coherent enough to obey them and Schuldig hadn't needed to go in after me, calm me down.

He came awake swiftly, more aware of the intrusion in his mind than the familiarity of the link. He was on his feet in an instant, sleepily ready to fend off any attacker, his mind tensing against mine, testing to see if he recognized me.

Moment of terror over, and he was back in his chair, looking down at me with something close to fear in his eyes. He was worried I hadn't come out lucid, that I would still be raving and cursing, but I smiled slowly at him as I felt his mind brush mine.

_Far? Are you all there?_

"As far as I know, yes. Can you let me out of here now?" I asked, indicating my straight jacket, which was getting increasingly uncomfortable with every passing minute. He shook his head.

"Crawford's orders; I shouldn't let you out until you've been on your meds for a couple of days and shown signs of improvement," he said even as he pressed his fingers to the canvas enfolding my arms. He gave me an apologetic smile and I dropped the subject.

"You scared us, you know."

"You scared _me_," I replied, remembering the fear of the two of them, the suddenly loss of memory, "What was that? What happened to me?"

He shrugged and squeezed my arm, "I don't know. Crawford's been looking it up, but he can't find anything on it. Maybe it's a side effect of the meds, I don't know. It shouldn't be…"

"I thought you were going to loose it, all of it," he said softly, his voice betraying all emotion he couldn't show in daylight. Only in this darkness, when everyone else was asleep and oblivious, could he confide in me. He felt close in the room and I relaxed against that feeling of familiarity.

"I'm not loosing my mind, Schuldig," I countered with a hint of annoyance, my voice dripping with challenge. He flashed a smile at me and nodded, ready to accept any lies I might've fed him.

As if I really knew…Sanity was a relative thing for me.

"How long was I out?"

"You've been in and out of it for a few days. You were damn near raving just yesterday. We put you in the jacket just before then, thanks to Crawford. I suspect he Saw all of this happening, just didn't tell us."

"I doubt it would've helped any," I sighed and turned my head into the pillow, "Dreading the unavoidable in a waste of time."

Like dreading my looming madness, my fate of eternally, eventually, loosing any and all grip on reality. It was the fate of all my kind, I supposed. I stopped worrying about it in the Asylum, knowing there was little worse than that in my head…I was such a stupid child then.

"Stop degrading yourself, Far," Schuldig snapped. I gave him an apologetic look as his comment cut my thinking in two. I shoved it away.

"I went in and did some work after we put you in the jacket."

"I remember. You pissed me right the hell off," I grit through my teeth, remembering the 'dream'.

"When you can do better, I dare you to try," I snapped haughtily. I laughed and rolled on my side, my eye watching him move in the dark, so graceful, so feline.

"Why do you keep equivocating me to cats? You've been doing it for years and I still don't get it."

"If you don't then you never will, you self-satisfied bastard," I said fondly. I gave me one of those patented kitty-smirks and flipped his hair back, also feline in its movement, as a cat would flick an ear. He laughed with me and crawled into bed next to me.

"God knows why I like you so, Far," he said with a snort, combing his fingers along my scalp, the short stubble of hair coarse against his fingers, "Maybe it's your hair. You're almost like an Aryan, it's so blonde."

Actually, it was blonde, but only just. It was almost too pale to really be any color, and I had a habit of bleaching it when it had gotten a little darker with age. Thus it's straw-like quality…

"I always knew you were a Neo-Nazi," I accused jokingly.

"I'm no such thing. The lies you tell, Farfarello!" he said with mock anger, his fingernails sharply punishing against my skin.

I smirked.

"I rather consider myself an Anarchist, you know that."

"You like cigarettes and shampoo too much to be an Anarchist."

"And you're too religious for the Anti-Christ."

I merely shrugged and he hugged me to him, his smile against my cheek.

"Go back to sleep. I know you're still high off those sedatives."

High wasn't the word. I was already dropping off. He watched me and smiled, then yawned and settled against me.

Well, it wasn't exactly what I'd wanted, but his nearness was still a comfort. I curled my unbound leg around his, pressed my head under his chin and went back to sleep.

_Fin Chapter 9_

_Please Review_

**Author's Notes: **Written in two hours, the playing of the self-titled 'Dresden Dolls' and 'Yes, Virginia…'(Also done by the Dresden Dolls), two brownies, a glass of milk and four Advil. All this rock music can't be good for my headaches…

Whatever.

The first half of this chapter is Farfarello's dream/mental landscape. Schu projected himself into the scene to try and convince Farfarello back into sanity, which was no small feat. Thought I'd tell you guys in case it was too abstract.

**To My Readers: **

**Roxie Faye: **I was absolutely swept away by your review. Thank you so much! It made me happy my little 'Prickzilla' joke made you laugh. It made me laugh too every time I edited it and made the whole process a little more enjoyable.

Yes, Farfarello was angry, furious really, about Nagi leaving. And who wouldn't be? He knows exactly what that boy is getting into and he doesn't like it one bit. Even you were objecting to it!

I'm glad you were so receptive to Farfarello's anger. I love writing for him. He's so different from conventional characters and his non sequitor way of thinking is easy to pick up and duplicate.

Besides, I don't believe in the whole 'Eating muffins makes God cry' theory. I mean, he might be crazy, but he's still a sentient being, not a vegetable. It's insulting that some don't understand that he's still a functioning, thinking human being and not some vile, foaming animal with a blender. (Besides, where did that fucking blender come from, anyway?)

…Agh, another tangent! Sorry, I'll shut up and write now.

**Morbid Knight**The three chapterswere backlogged long enough. I was sick of holding them. It made me feel like I needed to shed a few layers of skin. So by posting them I get the dual effect of creative freedom and some very pleased readers. I'm glad you were happily surprised. I do so like making nice people happy…(leer)

Yes, the boy is Nagi. But in his mental 'recession' (you could say), 'the boy' could also be him, or even Peter Pan, which his hallucinations are usually fixated on. Peter Pan is 'the boy who never grows up', and sometimes he'd consider himself as Peter, since he's never really grown out of that broken little boy his bitch mother had to flaw.

Yes, Ruth is a slut. It is implied somewhere that Farfarello is the product of an incestuous relationship between her and her brother (who was also a severe schizophrenic, for simplicity's sake), though I have no yet specified whether or not it was rape. Either way, Farfarello calls her a slut because he knows no better.

I liked the shopping trip too, a nice flash of normalcy in on every fucked up fic. It was nice to touch base for a moment there.

I usually ignore my mother if it's possible. She puts the blame on me all the time, but then, everyone does. I just shrug and leave.

And yes, Farfarello wears sweatpants. Think about it; a sexy, muscular Farfarello, fresh out of the shower, beads of wet still clinging to his bared white chest as he pads barefoot to his room, wearing nothing but a pair of loose, black sweatpants, hanging off his hips just enough to show the sharp curve of pelvis…

I'm sorry…lemme go wipe off my drool…

Congratulations to my own perversion! (giggles)


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Notes: **The **_NS_** means a 'New Scene' or 'Change of Scene'. Why? Because fanfiction is being a bitch and I wanted this up today.

Oh, this is the final chapter. Enjoy!

**10**

My first day out of the straight jacket was dull, or the beginning of it was…

Schuldig cooked a meager breakfast of eggs and coffee while I drowsed at the kitchen table and waited for a plate to appear. We weren't expecting Crawford for a couple more hours. As usual, we assumed he would be sleeping in, so when he showed up and sat down at the table next to me, we both looked a little shocked. He just glowered at us and ordered Schuldig to pour him 'some goddamn coffee'.

Ah, Crawford…if Takatori saw him like this I think the man would have a stroke. He is so unlike the front he presents and I suppose that's why I like him…today.

Eh, I'm allowed to be capricious.

Schuldig laughs at that thought and dropped the mug of steaming coffee in front of our leader, who is sitting so illustriously in his usual boxer and robe ensemble. His hair was sticking up on one side of his face and I wondered why he was up at this time of day. The man was practically nocturnal…didn't the sunlight make his skin burn or something?

"He isn't a vampire, Far," Schuldig commented and shoveled the eggs into a collective bowl and put it on the table. Crawford just gave me a look and went back to regarding his coffee, I guess trying to divine whether or not Schuldig's cooking would kill him.

Schuldig smacked me and sat down.

"You think too loudly," the redhead said by way of explanation. I was still feeling affronted and rubbed the back of my head.

"Well, excuse me for being human," I growled back and poured eggs onto my plate, sucking down coffee as quickly as it came to me.

"Stop bickering," Crawford snapped, "You two sound like a married couple. It's grotesque."

"Oh, that makes me feel much better, Brad. Thanks," I snarled at the same time Schuldig was making a comment about 'Lucy and Ethel', whoever the hell they were…but I might've heard wrong.

"Too early in the morning to deal with you two…"

"Then go away! We didn't invite you, you trigger happy son-of-a-bitch!" Schuldig shrieked, privy to the nasty thoughts I imagined Crawford thinking at that very moment. Obviously it had something to do with guns.

"Why are you up, anyway?" I asked, my tone notably calmer.

"I thought you'd like to know that the kid's coming back tomorrow. He passed with fucking flying colors," Brad said, his face twisted slightly. It worried me, that moment of sharp anger.

Did that mean that Esset had totally brainwashed him, just as I had expected?

I opened my mouth to ask, but Crawford cut me off.

"Yes, exactly as you said."

"Does that mean-"

"Yes. I'm afraid so."

I set my head down on the table and tried not to shake, tried not to feel as angry as I knew I felt. Schuldig moved away from me, sensing the danger.

"We're fucked…so fucked…That poor boy…"

"He's an operative now, nothing more," Crawford said, heartless as ever when it got down to business. I wanted to cry, I wanted to smack an emotion out of him, I wanted to know I was working under the direction of a man who still _felt_ something, anything.

Preferably someone who knew and respected regret. I wanted this man to die from the grief of virtually killing someone's soul.

I lifted my head and stared at him, trying to read his face.

"We have a new mission when he arrives," Crawford said, ignoring me.

Schuldig nodded, ready for his orders, thought I could sense something sad about his body language. He understood my anger, he shared in it.

"Schuldig, I want you to try and break some of the mental locks they've set on the boy, get some personality back. On his off time, I need Nagi around, not some robot. Farfarello, you're to help educating him. Read to him, give him resources and direction. I'm going to be enrolling him into school within the year, so I want him ready for social interaction with others his age. I'll keep up the team's front, as per usual."

The orders were flat, to the point and they warmed my heart. I smiled and nodded, Schu mock-saluted. Crawford got up and went back to bed.

**_NS_**

I don't know much about social life in most of the western world. I wasn't part of it for very long, but I had a fair guess to how teenagers lived. I figured it would be universal but for the most basic traditions of the Japanese. I was ready with music, books and a laptop for when Crawford would bring the boy home. Schuldig continually checking the team link with Crawford, telling me when he got to the airport, when he saw Nagi, when he got back in the car with the boy at his heels, when they were in the elevator…

The door opened on silent hinges and I watched from the couch as Crawford, then Nagi entered and shed their shoes. The boy was taller now, but still thin. His eyes seemed huge in his round face, his lips dainty and a little purple. His skin was the color of paper and I wondered if he had seen the sun since we had picked him up, the fateful day we'd found him.

He looked at me and no expression crossed his face. He gave me a silent bow and looked beyond me to Schuldig, who was lounging on the couch beside me.

"Hello Berserker, Mastermind," he whispered, "I am called Prodigy."

A complete team: Oracle Mastermind, Berserker, and Prodigy.

And that's the end of the beginning…

_Fin Birth of a Monster_

_Please Review_

**Author's Notes: **No, I'm dead serious, this is the last chapter! I hope you liked it.

No worries, I might come up with a sequel someday…


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